The Radio Operator

by Ulla Lenze

  He thought of the women he’d known. Mostly divorced women who all looked the same—always a bit on the plump side, with too much makeup on. They dredged their laughter from the depths of their weariness like a pesky hair they plucked from their tongue as they drank the third scotch he’d bought them.

  The weather didn’t hold. They were caught in a brief rain shower. When he opened his umbrella she threaded her arm through his, natural as anything. Now she was very close. A raindrop made a thin, shimmering line down her powdered face.

  Fog rose from the lake, tickled his throat; he tried to suppress a cough. He wanted to avoid anything that would make him seem old. In the lower half of the park there were still bits of leftover snow. A melted snowman, a single glove left on top. They strolled through shifting zones of steam, rain, cold, warmth. He started sweating. She pressed his forearm with her hand to indicate that he should walk slower, acting like it was she who needed a break.

  The rain stopped again, and she let go of his arm. Looked with concern at a few dark drops on her silk stockings. He reached for a clean handkerchief and a flyer slipped out of his jacket pocket. Quickly he bent to pick it up. THINK CHRISTIAN. ACT CHRISTIAN. BUY CHRISTIAN.

  “And you? What do you do for a living?” It seemed to cost her a lot of effort. Was it only now becoming clear to her how much older he was?

  “I’ve worked at a print shop for many years. But I’ve got something new lined up. Technical assistance for a foreign company.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  They were drawing closer to the park exit, he could tell from the mounting clamor, the sirens, the car horns, the voices. On 59th Street they fought their way through the crowds, strolled past baroque porticos and old-fashioned carriages that waited outside the grand hotels for tourists. Marble lobbies with men who disappeared completely behind their uniforms and caps. Lauren looked at a store display window. “The Grapes of Wrath,” she said, reading one title aloud, then another: “Mein Kampf.” She laughed again, an embarrassed laugh this time. Maybe it had something to do with the look on his face. “Joe, you can’t help it that Hitler’s on the New York Times bestseller list.”

  Simply to be a person, he thought. Who eats, breathes, sleeps, works, sometimes flirts with women, so long as they’re over thirty. Simply to be. At some point he had reached the insight that simply being was the most difficult thing. Everyone wanted to make you into something. Even if it was just a German who couldn’t help being German.

  They went on in silence, walking through empty playgrounds, bright chalk blurred from the rain, what was left of games of hopscotch. Finally she asked where exactly he was from—her family also came from Germany, she said, had immigrated in the mid-nineteenth century. He told her. She was interested, she said then, in Düsseldorf (Doozledorf)—what was it like growing up there? But he didn’t want to talk about it. It wouldn’t be able to measure up to her childhood and adolescence. Maybe she sensed this, because then she asked, “What was it like when you came here?”

  He had to be careful when he thought back on that time. He could wade into these feelings like a lake whose waters slowly rose all around him. As if it were not at all long ago, and if he didn’t watch out, everything he had achieved for himself could unravel, could turn out to be an illusion, collapse like a house of cards, as if he had achieved nothing at all, just a feather-light existence that was protected from nothing.

  “It wasn’t so bad. New York made it easy for me. A great city.”

  “I could lose myself in this city!” Lauren cried excitedly. “Hey, where do you live, Joe?”

  “I’ll be honest with you, it’s not a prestigious address.”

  He thought of the crowded tenements. Of the bars, the dance clubs, where white people came like they were going on safari in deepest Africa.

  “Harlem. East Harlem.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve read about it.” She pulled the New York guide out of her pocket again and flipped through it till she found Harlem. “Look, there’s so much going on there. Negro intellectuals like Langston Hughes, jazz—”

  “Sure,” he interrupted her, “only at this point the bars are all run by Italians who hire Negro step dancers to pander to a white audience.”

  “Oh really?”

  He was happy to know something for once.

  Lauren stopped for a moment, pulled a map out of her pocket, all marked up. Carl had had a map once too. He would spread it out on the kitchen table again and again, tracing routes all across New York City. It had been folded and unfolded so many times that the fold in the middle was torn. And then at some point it was gone. Josef had left it somewhere by mistake.

  “The New York Historical Society on 77th is open till five. We could go look at old photographs of the city.”

  He had never been in a museum before. He didn’t know how you were supposed to act.

  “I’m happy to walk with you there, Lauren. But then I have to go. I’ve got work.”

  “What about coffee?”

  He was surprised. What did she see in him? Nevertheless he started looking up and down the street. There was a bar, more of a place for men who were built like dockworkers, and an Automat.

  “I like Automats,” she said.

  The restaurant hadn’t been reset yet after the midday rush. The chairs stood carelessly pulled back from the tables. He could picture the haste with which the white- and blue-collar workers had scarfed down their food and then gotten right back up again. Lauren wiped a few crumbs away with her fist; he went to hang up her coat.

  He came back carrying a tray with two cups of coffee that clattered against each other and a slice of cheesecake to show how thoughtful he was. He was determined to steer the conversation more himself from now on.

  “Automats were a big help to me in the beginning. I was afraid to speak.”

  “Really, Joe?” she asked, smiling and shaking her head.

  “I knew maybe fifty words of English. Thick accent. Immigrants weren’t exactly well-liked back then either, and as soon as you opened your mouth your cover was blown. You understand?”

  He saw the sympathy in her look.

  “And then the Automats, these links in a chain across New York. They made me feel taken care of. The world would put food out for me in little glass windows. Sandwiches, scones, bagels, all waiting for me to decide. Just drop a coin in the slot, that was it.”

  She seemed to want to say something, but then after taking a breath she reached for her coffee and took a sip.

  Bing Crosby sang airily,

  I’m no millionaire,

  but I’m not the type to care.

  “Do you like Bing Crosby? We were born the same year, 1903. I know because people have told me I look a bit like him. What do you think?”

  His question was a prompt to get her to look at him. She pulled her coffee cup closer.

  “I always check the newspapers to see how much ol’ Bing is showing his age, and then I compare the two of us.”

  “And?”

  “So far it’s a tie.” He took his first sip of coffee. He could see that Lauren was looking for something. She tasted the cheesecake, chewed for a long time, swallowed.

  It’s my universe,

  even with an empty purse.

  ’Cause I’ve got a pocketful of dreams.

  “Sorry,” said Lauren.

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe for getting so quiet all of a sudden.”

  “But you don’t have to say anything.” And then he added quietly, “And I don’t either, actually.”

  They smiled at each other.

  Small, firm breasts. He could see as she stood up and discreetly tucked her blouse into her skirt.

  He still didn’t have her phone number. He didn’t want to ask, for the very reason that he liked her.

  10

  Neuss, July 1949

  ON SUNDAY THEY ALL GO TO CHURCH: STAND UP, KNEEL, sit, stand up, sing,


  Now thank we all our God,

  with heart and hands and voices,

  who wondrous things has done

  in whom this world rejoices.

  “Notice anything?” whispers Carl as the priest holds the host in the air, shows it to the congregation, and gives God the chance to transubstantiate. Josef notices a lot of things, but he doesn’t know what in particular he’s supposed to be looking out for. “The church bells are missing. They donated the metal to the war effort!”

  The people are strangers to him. They all wear poorly cut clothes made of old fabric that looks like it would turn to dust if you so much as blew on it. Josef knows that he hardly looks any better, that he, in Carl’s ill-fitting brown suit, is one of them. Only when he opens his mouth does anyone notice the difference.

  After mass Josef stands in the church square a bit apart from the rest and smokes. By this point the neighbors nod when they see him. They know who he is, know that they don’t really know. After Carl and Edith have finished shaking hands, they head for the park—the Sunday stroll. All that remains of the benches are the stone bases. The pond is a greenish-black, metallic brew, dusted with pollen. No ducks in sight, probably killed for food.

  Despite the desolate look of it all, Carl wants to take a family photo. He managed to hang on to his Linhof Technika all throughout the war; now he places it on the tripod he brought with him, instructs Edith, Josef, and the children to stand in front of the pond, presses the self-timer, and hurries back. “Don’t close your eyes! Look at the camera!” Josef notices that Carl goes up on his tiptoes.

  “I’d like one of those myself. That’s a real good one.”

  “You’re welcome to borrow mine,” says Carl.

  “I’ll take you up on that. Thanks.”

  “But what are you going to take pictures of around here? Rubble?”

  He just nods.

  “Something to remember us by? Before you move on, if you’re moving on?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know yet.”

  Is he staying or is he going—they’re waiting for his answer. He has the answer—of course he’ll be going, and of course they know that—but the limbo in which they all find themselves together gives him something to hold on to, and as soon as he voices his plan aloud he’ll find himself in free fall.

  He isn’t quite there yet.

  Back home Edith serves lunch. There are pork chops—three pieces of meat with appetizing crusts of glistening fat. He and Carl each get a whole piece, Edith shares the third with the children. He eats hungrily. As he does he steals looks at Edith. She eats quickly and matter-of-factly. She passes dishes around and always serves herself last.

  “Josef liked to run away as a kid. You don’t mind my telling them, do you?”

  He smiles. He wouldn’t call it running away. He doesn’t have a word for it and is interested to hear what his brother has to say.

  “He just kept on walking, through the different towns, through the forest. How old were you? Six, seven? I was just a little squirt myself, maybe four. I remember all the excitement at home very well.”

  “And then?” asked Edith.

  Josef takes over now. “A farmer found me and brought me back.” He doesn’t tell them the most important part. That he was happy. He had snuck into a barn and buried himself in the hay. No one knew where he was, only him. He was safe.

  “Don’t you two get any ideas!” says Carl and raises his finger at the children in warning.

  It’s the first time that Carl has said anything about their childhood. Up till now he has seemed to focus solely on the present, solely on the things around them that they can see, hear, and touch, as if the rest were a theatrical mire, as if it were something you could drown in—and it’s entirely possible that he’s right.

  He himself is not especially eager to dwell on it. But he’d had time. In Sandstone he walked three kilometers a day in his cell. He paced back and forth and counted how many times he’d paced the three-meter length of the cell. One thousand times.

  Edith and Täubchen clear the table, producing a light, airy background music of scraping and clinking.

  “Want to join me again tomorrow? I could use some help.”

  Carl only asks him every couple of days. It’s not supposed to become something he takes for granted, their making the rounds of deliveries together.

  “Of course, happy to!”

  Carl nods and stands up. “Come on, let’s play a game of chess.”

  Right at the outset Carl makes a mistake. In his eagerness to attack Josef’s rook he leaves his queen unprotected. It’s only the fourth move, and already Josef has taken Carl’s queen, giving up only a knight in exchange. Under the table Carl steps on Josef’s foot by mistake; he doesn’t notice, takes it for a table leg. Josef doesn’t pull his foot back.

  “Do you want to take the move back? It takes the fun out of it otherwise.”

  “That would be dishonest.”

  Carl doesn’t say anything more. He stares at the board, concentrating hard. His need to keep a brave face seems to demand his full attention. Josef takes advantage of the opportunity to tell him about his radio hobby.

  “Yeah, we had that here too. When the war started it was banned.”

  “You can overcome any distance, Carl. You hear someone saying something who at that very moment is sitting in Paris.”

  “And what do you say?”

  “You confirm that you can hear the other person. Maybe say a few words about the weather or exchange details about each other’s radio equipment.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Sure. Sometimes amateur operators help rescue people by accident when they intercept signals of people in distress. One thing you have to know is that sometimes you can only transmit a great distance away. It has to do with the ground waves. The waves are distributed across various elevations. The waves that travel close to the ground get swallowed up by different obstacles in their path. They call that the dead zone. But in the open air there’s barely any loss of energy. The waves rise over all obstacles, buildings, forests, bridges, and then they’re reflected back down to earth. But it’s usually somewhere very far away. That’s why, for example, the report of an avalanche in Austria can be picked up in England. From there a message can be sent back to a town near where the avalanche occurred and help can be called in.”

  “I can’t think.” Carl gestures at the board.

  Carl has lost his major pieces. They play on in silence. Five minutes later Josef has checkmate.

  “I’m a bit out of practice.”

  “We played every now and then on Ellis Island.”

  “There you go,” says Carl.

  They played every kind of game—poker, skat—for money, even though it was against the rules. “I might as well do something illegal now,” one of the Japanese men had said once, “otherwise I’d be in here for no reason.”

  11

  New York, February 1939

  AT THE LAST MINUTE HE STEPPED OUT OF THE WAY OF A woman leaving the Bremenhaus, laughing as she turned to the person with her. The fur collar of her coat brushed against his cheek. No one noticed but him. Clown noses and masks in the window displays; it was Fat Tuesday.

  He found Schmuederrich outside the Schaller & Weber butcher’s shop. He was again wearing the military uniform of the German American Bund. The eyes in his chubby-cheeked face were narrow and bleary from lack of sleep. He held one hand out to shake Josef’s and clapped him on the shoulder with the other. “Let them do the talking, all right?”

  The air in the Old Heidelberg was stale and overheated. It smelled of pot roast, beer, and cigars. Someone had thrown streamers onto the red-checkered tablecloths. They wound around the vases, which held little swastika flags. A small band played German Carnival songs.

  For Carnival comes only once a year, Carnival on the Rhine.

  Schmuederrich pointed to a table way in the back. From that distance, Josef recognized Dörsam. The men broke off their
discussion and leaned back, but none of them stood up. An elegantly dressed gentleman with brilliantined hair said mockingly, “Good heavens, Schmuederrich, you really dressed to the hilt, didn’t you! Now I feel like Hitler wearing a raincoat when he met Mussolini.”

  Schmuederrich laughed, but the man cut him off with a hand gesture. “This guy here? This is the one with the radio?” Schmuederrich made introductions. The man’s name was Dr. Ritter. He was in the textiles business. The third man at the table was a normal-looking guy, blond, big boned, baby faced. “Max has just arrived from Hamburg, but he lived in New York for a few years. He’s also a radio hobbyist,” said Dr. Ritter, looking at Josef with interest.

  Josef took a seat next to Dörsam. Dr. Ritter talked about his grand hotel in Times Square, the Taft—“Old world, you know”—and about the luxury cabin on his ship. Whenever someone else was speaking, he drummed softly on the table with his fingers.

  A girl in a yellow silk dress, dressed up in Chinese costume, walked among the tables with a basket of roses, flirting. Max kept sniffing, every few seconds. He seemed not to notice it, but at times this wet rasping sound was all Josef could hear.

  Josef wasn’t part of the conversation. He waited for the food, and when it came, he awkwardly set about eating his stuffed cabbage, like someone who was seated at the same table quite by accident and wasn’t actually one of the party. The words “cleaning house” had been uttered; they were talking about Germany. The words sat there on the table between the bread basket and the swastikas. He wondered if he could just take off without anyone noticing. If these were the businesspeople who needed a radio operator, it would hardly be an improvement on his old job.

  Just then Dr. Ritter said, “Herr Klein. What is your opinion of the New York melting pot?”

  “I don’t think I have an opinion of it,” he said cautiously.

  “Oh, I know Josef,” Schmuederrich jumped in. “He likes it here. Every day he gets to feel like he’s on a trip around the world.”

  Laughter. But Dr. Ritter grew serious again. He had been walking around on the Lower East Side, he said, and he could hardly believe how backward life there was, in this day and age, a pure slum in the middle of a global metropolis, as if the poorest regions of Eastern Europe had just been dumped there, every one of them a criminal. It was high time this city started to fight back. Where did he live?