The Radio Operator

by Ulla Lenze

  When he got back to his cell he saw Carl’s handwriting. He saw that Carl was alive. On his bed was the letter. The way it was lying there it was like his brother was suddenly in the room with him.

  And then he read the letter and learned that they were all alive—all the Kleins had survived. Edith, the two children, and all their relatives in Düsseldorf and Aachen.

  “You always have a home here with us,” Carl wrote. He knew it wasn’t true. But it felt good to read the words.

  He immediately set all the wheels in motion and found an agency to send a care package to Neuss. Chocolate. Coffee. Aspirin. Sausage. Pepper. Jerky. Adhesive tape.

  36

  San José, Costa Rica, June 1953

  HE FEELS THE HEAT WHEN HE STEPS OUT OF HIS ROOM, ITS force and intensity. The green hurts his eyes. He looks longingly at the river. The water is cool. He dipped his foot in once.

  He knocks on Maria’s door. She has her wet hair wrapped in a towel and seems happy that he’s encountering her in a more intimate setting.

  Maria warned him about the river. She didn’t mention a reason. Crocodiles? The current? Now he stands facing her and asks.

  “It’s so deep, Don José!”

  He stares at her in amazement.

  “The men say thirty feet in the deepest parts.”

  “But I can swim.”

  “But it’s so deep.”

  So Maria can’t swim, he takes it. She doesn’t know what swimming is.

  “It doesn’t matter how deep the river is,” he tells her. “You can drown as soon as you don’t feel the ground beneath you anymore.”

  She rubs her hair with the towel and looks at him like he’s pulling her leg.

  “Maria, drowning isn’t like falling from a building, where you’re more likely to survive a fall from two meters up than from eight meters.”

  “Fine, go give it a try, then.”

  * * *

  Again and again. Even when Maria has closed the door, he’s still explaining it to her. Again and again. Like the squirrel that keeps looking desperately for a way out of the wire cage. During the day the cage hangs from the terrace awning. When you move closer, it starts shaking violently this way and that.

  “It would rather die than be trapped,” he said to Maria yesterday. She doesn’t like hearing it, her mouth a stubborn dash.

  He lies back down on the bed, which is small, without bedposts or a headboard, and watches the patient spinning of the ceiling fan. The blades slice through the air and make a thin, high sound. On the floor, the maps. All of Costa Rica is lying around him. To map a country. The mountains, the roads, the rivers, the towns. Colors of light blue, lime green, eggshell white.

  Buenos Aires: Two years of being stuck in a city that was either muddy from the rain or dusty from the sun. In which you couldn’t make any money if you hadn’t already brought a lot of money with you. He had torn down houses and painted the garden fences of rich exiles. Men with a past. A married couple from Austria let him live in the gardener’s shed of their vacation home outside the city. He kept their garden in good shape. Mowing the grass, trimming the hedges, pulling weeds. Sometimes on the weekends he saw the couple from a distance. He breathed, he slept, he ate beans and rice. Now I’m like Thoreau in his cabin, he thought then. And soon it had been two years. Only when an invitation came from Schmuederrich did he show himself among the Germans. When he had saved enough money, he set out. His plan was to travel to the US via Mexico. It was in Costa Rica that, for the first time, someone took a closer look at his homemade passport. He sat in prison for three days. Yes, he was German. They sent someone from the German Embassy. He believed him but needed proof, which Josef didn’t have. Finally he asked for a telephone and called Dörsam. He knew someone here. Two hours later he was free and had an address in his pocket, which led him to Maria. And then he got the job at the Geographic Institute.

  Music in the ceiling fan. He hasn’t done much, just poked through the maps, spreading them over the floor, letting them get out of order, happy that he knows how to produce such things. He still hasn’t learned to deal with the dizziness in the little plane, an old three-engine sesquiplane. They work in a team; he enjoys great esteem. Americano they call him, José the Americano.

  Sometimes he flips through the issues of Stern. He’s received them all by now, except for the last one; it should be coming today. He flips through the pages and he searches, even though he already knows there’s nothing in there about him. He’s happy about that. But then why is Dörsam coming?

  He pauses when he sees a picture of the German American Bund’s rally at Madison Square Garden. “But they do it in good faith and with a self-evident sense of connection with the motherland.”

  How touching.

  And all throughout there are women hanging up laundry, demonstrating their ease of movement in advertisements for sanitary towels, and still more women showing off their waists in ads for tights, hands on their hips, legs crossed, back foot up, elegantly modest.

  A car drives into the courtyard. The driver is a young man, cigarette dangling from one side of his mouth, hat pushed back on his head. He gets out and strikes a pose: one arm on the roof of the car, eyes gazing up at Josef. Josef nods to him from the veranda. This will all belong to him someday. Maria’s oldest son. Maria comes running out of the house and throws her arms around the young rascal. The smell of perfume wafts up from below. She turns around and waves goodbye. He waves back. “See you Monday, Don José!” she calls out. Her spending the weekend with her children in town is perfectly all right with him. Maybe he’ll find the courage in the next two days to free the squirrel.

  From the veranda he can see out to the road in front of the house. The neighbor’s three dogs are there, out for their evening walk. Ever since her husband died, Maria has kept her dog on a leash. He’s dangerous, she says. Everything here is dangerous, apparently.

  He can hear the dog breathing sometimes, depending on which way the wind is blowing. It’s just a watchdog. He’s supposed to bark when someone gets too close, that’s all. On her nightstand, she tells him, there’s a pistol.

  At first the dog would bark at him whenever he came loping across the courtyard toward the house; by now, though, the dog recognizes his shambling gait.

  Next he hears the mailman’s creaky bicycle. He’s already holding the brown envelope with Carl’s handwriting in his hand. It’s the last Stern issue. Now it makes him nervous after all—why else would Dörsam announce his visit?

  His heart is pounding when he opens the magazine. He sees the picture of the accused in the courtroom, framed by DR. SCHOLL’S SHOE INSERTS and REFORMA RHEUMA-EASE COMFORTERS. Him on the far right, head cocked and looking off to the side. Who was he looking at? Lauren? He remembers looking away, how each of them kept trying to avoid the other’s gaze. He felt hollowed out on the inside. He couldn’t run away and couldn’t speak. He remembers the scraping of feet, the murmur in the courtroom; he remembers Judge Mortimer Byers. He remembers the absence, the whispering—where’s Sebold? The only one missing at the trial was this man who, thanks to Ettinger, he hadn’t met once. Maybe he would have gotten an even longer sentence if he had. Sebold’s office was a trap. The FBI was waiting behind a mirror and everyone he lured to the office was captured on film forever. He remembers the films being shown in the courtroom, one agent after the other blundering into Sebold’s office. There had never been anything like it. The papers the next day couldn’t get enough of this spectacular method for unmasking criminal activity.

  The one person who didn’t show up in the film was him. Ettinger had vanished, just like Sebold. And he, Josef, was sitting with twenty-three Nazis and couldn’t open his mouth.

  Carefully he opens Carl’s letter.

  Since I haven’t gotten any mail from you for some time, I assume that you’re in the process of writing your report to me.

  No, he’s only started it. Carl had asked him to finally explain everything once and for all.<
br />
  The other letters are carbon copies. Carl is sending letters all over the place—to the journalists, to the editors at Stern, to the surviving agents.

  Dear Herr Thorwald,

  My brother, who is traveling the world without papers . . . may I ask for your help . . . we must combine our efforts to . . .

  Josef swallows. He needs a break and puts on Duke Ellington.

  * * *

  Later he stares at a photo of Nikolaus Ritter for a long time and thinks about the Old Heidelberg again. The greasy hair, the smug, broad smile. Now Ritter is sitting with reporters in his apartment in Hamburg, reminiscing. For him, the exporter, things couldn’t be better. He pompously explains that the Jew Lily Stein received assistance in leaving the country, and in exchange she was to perform a few services for military intelligence.

  Right at the bottom his eye is caught by a letter from a reader. A former agent guesses that military intelligence had already calculated in advance that the operation would be uncovered. So he’s not the only one this idea has occurred to.

  He sighs and closes the magazine. It’s over.

  37

  San José, Costa Rica, June 1953

  RICARDO IS COUNTING AGAIN. FOUR BOTTLES OF SODA WATER. Two cartons of milk. Five bananas. While he counts he taps every object with his finger. Starts over from the beginning and then adds another banana so the price is easier to calculate. His glasses are greasy and there’s a crack down the middle of one lens. Everything he does he does slowly, and depending on Josef’s mood this can either drive him into a white-hot rage or impart a feeling of deep peacefulness.

  Edith’s quick movements. The way she closed the door behind her with her foot, bread pinned beneath her chin, the laundry in her arms.

  With Ricardo he thinks hard beforehand about what exactly he’s going to have him pull off the shelves. Sometimes he shortens the list halfway through because things are moving too slowly for him. Ricardo likes to grab each item off the shelf separately. It doesn’t help to list off three items at once that are right next to each other—rice, lentils, beans. He only comes back with one.

  Every single thing is given its dignity. Here’s the semolina. Here’s the tobacco. Here’s the milk.

  Oh, how he’s come to love this.

  * * *

  On the way back a car passes him, trailing a brown cloud of dust. He holds his breath. He rides past the old pochote tree that has grown so crooked that no one wants to cut it down.

  The car that passed him is waiting in the driveway. A taxi. Dörsam has gotten out and holds up a bag of crackers. “You live up there, right?”

  Josef goes up the stairs ahead of him. At the top he points toward the veranda. “Have a seat, Herr Dörsam.”

  “Well, well,” mumbles Dörsam. “In Buenos Aires you always made yourself scarce, true. But I heard only good things about you. That you were a hard worker. A good handyman. The Germans have you to thank for all their garden fences. How’s the work at the Geographic Institute? Good?”

  What is Dörsam getting at? That it’s thanks to Dörsam that he has a good job? Yes, that he knows.

  “I can’t complain.”

  “You never could complain. You always had it good.”

  The midday heat has settled in on the veranda. Josef goes into the kitchen, grabs two glasses, hesitates, then tosses a few ice cubes in them before filling them with water. He has a thought: he could grab Dörsam and throw him over the railing, or go get Maria’s revolver from the nightstand and gun him down, then throw his body in the river, which of course is nice and deep.

  When he comes back, Dörsam has taken off his jacket, even slipped off his suspenders.

  “This fall there are parliamentary elections in Germany,” says Dörsam with his mouth full and offers him a cracker. He wants to keep him up to speed, he says as Josef furrows his brow. The leading candidate for the Deutsche Reichspartei is Rudel. “The gentleman from Buenos Aires. You met him a few times. The one with the prosthetic leg.”

  Josef doesn’t know if he should nod or laugh.

  The dog barks in the courtyard.

  Josef takes advantage of the interruption. “Have you heard about the report in Stern? Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  Dörsam looks at him, taken aback. Josef stands up, grabs the magazines, and throws them on the table. Dörsam nods and pages through them a little. “Our efforts are getting the recognition they deserve. Oh, look at that. Söderbaum has a new movie out.”

  “That’s all you have to say?” Josef’s voice is louder than usual, almost shrill. Dörsam sets the magazine back down. Cranes his neck and looks over the balustrade. Jungle. Green. Banana bushes, leaves hanging limply like exhausted flag bearers. Still no answer. Did Dörsam not hear him?

  “You used us,” says Josef.

  “Used you?” Dörsam moves an ice cube around in his mouth. There’s a soft crunch when he bites down.

  Josef wipes his forehead with his hand and decides to bring the matter to a head: “What are you doing in Costa Rica, Herr Dörsam?”

  Dörsam leans back. “I’ll be visiting a few more Germans while I’m here. I want to know who I can count on. When we win in the fall and start putting Germany’s house back in order, will you be with us?”

  “No, Herr Dörsam.”

  Dörsam nods. Doesn’t seem at all disappointed. Praises the magnificent view. “You’ve really got it nice here! A little slice of paradise on earth. Maybe I’ll come back to Costa Rica someday myself.”

  Soon after that Dörsam stands up, takes his time putting his jacket back on—“Get yourself an air conditioner!”—and goes stomping down the stairs, Josef following after him. Then he hears him howling.

  “Look at this! Typical, these primitive country people. Don’t know that you can’t keep a squirrel in a cage.”

  “Herr Dörsam?”

  Dörsam keeps walking and just gives a quick glance back over his shoulder. “Yes?”

  “I went to the FBI back then and told them about us.”

  Dörsam’s hand is on the car door. He freezes for a moment. Then turns around with a jerk.

  “Oh, almost forgot. Schmuederrich sends his regards.”

  “Please send him mine as well.”

  The black taxi disappears behind the brown dust cloud. He sees only this rising tower of dust, a ghost that slowly collapses in on itself, and hears the takatakataka of the motor growing thinner and thinner, then the sounds of the jungle take over again, chirping and croaking and cawing.

  He has a piece of cracker stuck in his teeth.

  That evening he listens to the German international radio service broadcasting out of Cologne, which comes in as clear as a local station. He looks at the letter he started yesterday. He’s started several such letters.

  I’ll keep writing the letter tonight. Or start it over again. I’ll write it in such a way, Carl, that you understand.

  Then he crosses out the last sentence.

  I don’t know if I can explain it all to you. I just think I was too stupid, simple as that. And now it’s all too late.

  This too he crosses out.

  A storm rolls in, the electricity drops out, the ceiling fan makes one last tired revolution. The sky grows dark, the trees start to sway. He stands on the veranda, feels the cool wind and the silence. A baffled silence. Everything is reshaping itself.

  * * *

  In the morning he is awakened by a sound, a regular rip, rip that tears him away from his dreams. Maria is back. She is sitting on the stairs in front of the house and tearing leaves off a bulky stalk of herbs; a whole pile lies in front of her. Rip, rip, rip. The sound triggers a feeling of uneasiness within him, as if he’d done something wrong.

  He pulls himself out of bed, puts on the first clothes that come to hand, and goes down to join her. She welcomes him with a big smile. “Don José, your hair is too long. May I cut it for you?”

  “Gladly.” He hesitates, but then he says in a firm voice, “But
first let’s free the squirrel.”

  Her smile stiffens, but to his surprise, she then assents and gestures invitingly over toward the cage. He carries it over to the lawn as she watches. Maria crouches down and looks at the squirrel. It’s hanging from the side of the cage, fully outstretched, its leathery claws clinging to the bars. A silent, patient exchange of glances, as if the animal knew what was going on.

  “It’ll always be close by, Maria. It’ll live here in the garden.”

  “It’ll get as far away as it can.”

  “Yes, maybe,” he has to admit.

  Once she’s opened the little door, it leaps off into the jungle, fast as lightning, cutting arcs in the fluttering air. Quick, agile, like a good idea in your head, as light and quick as the air itself. Where was it he’d seen the electronics store in town? He looks up at the house. Sure, he could attach an antenna up there.

  “Don José?” Maria fishes a key out from her clothes. “For the boathouse. You can take the boat out and go fishing. Like the men. But be careful.”

  Maybe he’ll stay here.

  Acknowledgments

  For historical guidance, I thank Dr. Florian Altenhöner, Professor Dr. Wolfgang Krieger, Dr. Christoph Selzer, and Dr. Monika Siedentopf. I also thank Barry Moreno and Kevin Daley at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration and the amateur radio operators at the Chaos Computer Club, Berlin. Thanks also to Ernst Vranka (OE3EVA), who alerted me to a few technical inaccuracies. Not everything stands up to literary adaptation—may amateur operators forgive me!

  For conversations and thoughtful reading, I thank my editor, Corinna Kroker, and also Isabel Fargo Cole, Hannah Dübgen, Rolf-Bernhard Essig, Lucy Fricke, Karin Graf, Christian Jeukens, Sünje Lewejohann, Inger-Maria Mahlke, Lydia Mechtenberg, Klaus Sellge, and Liliana Marinho de Sousa.

  Finally, I owe a very special thank you to my mother, who remembered everything for my benefit.

  Bibliography

  For readers who wish to delve deeper into the subject, the following is a selection of books, films, and documentaries I recommend.