Nothing Is Forgotten_A Novel

by Peter Golden

  “And the bad thoughts start again?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Now?”

  “Not now. Not at all.”

  “So we’ll get married?”

  With an earnest expression on her face, Yuli said, “Does dinner come with it?”

  She laughed and put her arms around me, her body warm against mine, and I held on to her, recalling what my grandmother had told me a long time ago: Mishka, whatever you do, remember this your whole life. You fix the past in the present, not in the past.

  50

  Venice Beach was down the hill from the Georgian, and before eight in the morning we were watching for Nate Falk from a bench across from the shul, a modest building with two sky-blue faux windows shaped like the tablets of the Ten Commandments embedded in the white stucco facade. Out on the sand, volleyball games were under way, and surfers in wet suits were carrying their boards and wading out into the foam-tipped swells, and bicyclists veered among the dog walkers and roller skaters on the boardwalk, a cement strip bordering the beach with souvenir stands, tattoo parlors, restaurants, and bars. Just off the cement were makeshift tents fashioned from sticks and scarves knotted together, where winos, druggies, and certifiables had spent the night and were now greeting the cool sunlit breeze by babbling out loud to themselves.

  As a bald compact man in a madras sport jacket entered the shul, I glanced at the snapshot of Nate that his daughter had lent us. “There he is.”

  Yuli sprang up, quick-stepping past the benches of old men and women in ill-fitting suits and shapeless floral dresses who appeared to be transplants from Eastern European shtetls, and disappeared into an alleyway to the right of the shul. I followed her, but when I got to the alley, she was on her way back.

  I said, “The bearded guy again?”

  “Maybe no. Behind the people on the benches—a stocky guy, bucket hat, sunglasses, stubble like he hadn’t shaved in a week. He was staring at us, and I thought he went into the alley. But I was wrong.”

  We stood with our backs against the shul, Yuli watching the scene, and when Nate came out and stopped to brush sand off his suede horsebit loafers, I said, “Mr. Falk.”

  He squinted in our direction through his amber-tinted aviator shades, and I introduced us, saying that Bashe had suggested we look him up.

  “Very smart lady, Bashe,” Nate said, and with traces of a German accent, though evidently he had mastered his w’s. “So what can I do you for?”

  “I had some questions about Nuremberg.”

  With his shrewd car-dealer eyes and a merry expression on his tanned, deeply lined face, Nate gave Yuli’s tight cranberry polo and black capri pants an appreciative once-over. “You gotta talk, too.”

  “I will,” Yuli said, summoning up a shy coquettish grin that I hadn’t seen before. “If you let us buy you a coffee.”

  Not far from the shul, a restaurant was serving breakfast. We sat under an umbrella at an outdoor table, and a waitress brought us coffee and a basket of muffins.

  “Irma didn’t send you, did she?” Nate asked, sinking his teeth into a bran muffin as if it were an apple.

  Yuli said, “She’s a nice girl, your daughter. She told us where you say Kaddish and gave us your picture.”

  I handed Nate the photo, and he tucked it into the inner pocket of his madras jacket. “Irma and Bert belong to a highfalutin temple on Wilshire. It ain’t for me.” He dropped three lumps of sugar into his mug. “What’d you wanna know about Nuremberg?”

  I bit into a corn muffin. “Have you ever heard of a woman from there—Hildegard Ter Horst?”

  Nate sneered. “She was married to that murdering Nazi bastard the Mossad dumped in the canal in Amsterdam, and she died when the Brits blew up Nuremberg. At least that’s what I read in the papers.”

  “You ever meet Hildegard?”

  “Nah, but I seen her old man, Wilhelm Kreit. He was one of the biggest Jew haters in Nuremberg, which is saying something—the city was the biggest Nazi hellhole in Germany. Kreit was also a thief. If you were a rich Jew and wanted out of Nuremberg, all you had to do was give him your jewelry and your bank account. Rumor was that once a month he went to Switzerland to sell the jewels and stash the money. And when Kreit wasn’t stealing, he was writing for Der Stürmer—a hate rag. Its motto on the front page was Die Juden sind unser Unglück—The Jews are our misfortune.”

  Nate sampled his coffee and added another sugar. “Funny thing is, Hildegard’s mother’s family was the opposite of the Kreits. Most of them was executed by the SS for aiding Jews. One survived—Ursula Becker. Ursula was a social worker, her husband owned properties in Nuremberg, and they hid Jews until the Gestapo shows up and shoots the husband. Ursula got away—I think she was hiding somewhere else. After the war, she winds up in the displaced-persons camp the American army set up in an old SS barracks, and Ursula meets a rabbi there and converts to Judaism. Some story, ain’t it?”

  “It is,” I said, after swallowing the last of my muffin. “How do you know it?”

  “From my buddies out here—survivors like me. Couple times a week we eat at Canter’s, a deli over on Fairfax—you ever go, do yourself a favor and order the challah French toast. Me and my buddies are starting a Holocaust museum, for the stuff we save from Europe—pictures, menorahs, those goddamn armbands the Nazis made us wear. And I hear Ursula Becker’s gonna raise us some money.”

  “How will she do that?”

  “That’s the best part of the story. Ursula moved to the States, and she gives some speeches and helps survivors with problems—they’re sad, got nightmares, lots of problems. She lives in Los Angeles. I ain’t met her, but the survivors say Ursula’s a saint. A Jewish saint—only in California, yeah?”

  I looked over at Yuli and assumed that we were thinking the same thing. I was anxious to leave, but Yuli said to Nate, “May we talk about Irma?”

  Nate was done with his muffin and lit a cigar, puffing on it until his face was swathed in an acrid fog. “You’re Russian, ain’t you? I can hear it. I met Russians in Buchenwald.”

  “I am from the Ukraine. And the Germans murdered my mother and many of my friends.”

  “Then how come you get it and my daughter don’t? Her three brothers and her mother died in the camps. Why don’t Irma see I can’t stick around her husband? That jerk thinks a Nazi prison camp is funny.”

  Yuli put her hands on one of Nate’s. “Most Americans don’t care about history. They can’t. They’re too optimistic. And history is tough on optimism.”

  Ursula Becker . . . Ursula Becker . . . The name reverberated in my head, and I was desperate to go and make a phone call. Yuli, however, asked the waitress to refill her mug, clearly inclined to stay until we convinced Nate to return to the El Royale.

  “Mr. Falk,” I said, “you want to get even with Hitler?”

  Taking the cigar out of his mouth, he arched his bushy, grizzled eyebrows. “The bastard’s dead. There’s no getting even with him.”

  “Yes there is. You go be with your daughter and grandchild.”

  “How does that follow?”

  “Because the Nazis with their Final Solution weren’t planning on Jewish grandchildren.”

  Nate glanced at his mug and back at me.

  “Jewish grandchildren—they make Hitler spin in his grave. Fershtay?”

  Nate set the cigar in the glass ashtray. “Ich fershtay, boychik. I understand.”

  51

  Nate Falk hadn’t bought a car yet, and after the three of us had walked up to the Georgian, he asked the doorman to hail him a cab. Yuli volunteered to give Nate a ride, and he replied, “You think I won’t go to the El Royale unless you take me?”

  “Of course not. We were going out anyway. To look for a different hotel.”

  That was news to me, but I figured that the man Yuli had gone searching for in the alley was the reason we were going to move.

  “I got myself a room. Ten minutes from Irma.”

  Nate sat in
the passenger seat, reciting directions—Wilshire to Sunset to Hollywood to Franklin, an easy twenty-five-minute trip, proving that only long-haul truckers and masochists used the freeways. Except for the palm trees shading the glassed-in lobby, the Landmark Motor Hotel could have been transplanted from the Jersey Shore—a pair of stacked-up boxes with steel-railed balconies, sided with rough concrete, and spray-gunned the pale ice-cream colors of butter pecan and cherry vanilla.

  “Thanks for the lift,” Nate said, getting out.

  “Is there a pay phone in the lobby?” I asked, and when he nodded, I said that we would wait for him because I had to make a call. As Nate went inside, I got a Bic pen and pad from my rucksack, and Yuli said, “You’re not calling Ursula Becker?”

  I shook my head, and at the check-in desk exchanged a five-dollar bill for dimes and quarters, and made my call. I was closing the phone book when Nate keeled into the lobby, clasping the handles of two big suitcases. I relieved him of his bags and loaded them in the trunk.

  “Here,” Nate said, holding up a key attached to a black plastic tag with the address of the Landmark and the room number printed on it in white. “I paid a month upfront, and instead of fighting to get my money, you take it.”

  I was about to decline when Yuli reached over the back seat for the key. “That’s so kind, Mr. Falk. Thank you.”

  “Nate, I’m Nate.”

  Traffic was whizzing past on Franklin, and I peeled out into the right lane and drove to the El Royale. While the valet unloaded the luggage, Yuli climbed out and kissed Nate’s cheek. He was beaming and flashed me a thumbs-up, and after he followed the valet into the lobby, Yuli asked, “Who did you call?”

  “The office secretary at Beth El. My family’s synagogue in South Orange. The cops had told me Emma was supposed to be there the evening she was shot—to hear a lecture about Holocaust survivors. I never knew the name of the lecturer. Now I do.”

  “Ursula Becker?”

  I opened the travel guide to a map. “Ursula Becker. And I found her address in the phone book—1 Falcon Lane. It’s out toward Pasadena. Fifteen, sixteen miles from here. Ready to go?”

  “Not yet. First, we check out of the Georgian. Second, we go to LAX and rent a different car—a plain car, not a convertible. And tonight we sleep at the Landmark—it’s perfect, we won’t be registered in your name.”

  “But we haven’t seen anyone. Why would—”

  “Tishe yedesh, dal’she budesh.”

  “ ‘The slower you go, the farther you get.’ That’s a Russian proverb?”

  “Da, and a smart one. Not seeing somebody watching doesn’t mean somebody is not. And if Ursula is Hildegard Ter Horst—”

  The tiniest note of skepticism in her voice curdled my elation at finally locating Hildegard into anger at Yuli. “You doubt she is?”

  “This is not a hundred percent, is this? I wonder why Hildegard would be helping survivors. It is possible, but strange, yes?”

  “And also a smart way to hide.”

  “Even if that is true, we do not march into her house and say, ‘Hi, you are arrested.’ If Ursula is Hildegard, she has thought about this day and made plans. If the KGB or Stasi get her, maybe she plans doing as they ask, and they protect her. If the Americans catch her, she knows she can go to prison or be executed for murdering your grandmother. And if she is deported to West Germany, she can be tried for whatever her role was in Dmitry being shot, or worse, for war crimes.”

  “Unless the Bundestag votes against extending the statute of limitations for trying Nazis.”

  “And don’t you believe Hildegard is waiting to hear? If the trials stop and she escapes the police for shooting your grandmother, her worries are over. We don’t want Hildegard to escape. We want to end this, don’t we?”

  Her face was as beautiful as ever, but her expression was dark, cold, intent, and her question sounded as if she was committed to killing Hildegard. I started up the Mustang, choosing not to ask Yuli about her intentions because I didn’t want to hear her answer.

  * * *

  At the Georgian, we packed up, and Yuli accompanied the bellman to the car with our suitcases while I settled the bill. In a wing chair in the back of the lobby a man in a khaki windbreaker was reading the Los Angeles Times, and when he lowered the paper, I saw that he was in his thirties, with most of his hair gone and in need of a shave. He could’ve been the guy Yuli had spotted at Venice Beach, yet he didn’t bother to glance at me, not the behavior of someone tailing us, and I concluded that Yuli’s paranoia was as contagious as the flu.

  The Hertz agent at the airport swapped the Mustang for a Country Squire station wagon—a light caramel color with a wood-grain trim. We bought two cans of Coke from a machine, and to get back to the city I had to break my streak of avoiding freeways and hopped on the 405.

  “What do we do when we get to Hildegard’s house?” I asked, taking a swig of Coke and giving the can to Yuli.

  “It’s too early to go. We should be there at four thirty. Before dinner. To see who comes home.”

  My temper flared. “We’re going to sit and stare at her house?”

  “Spies spy, Misha. Then they act.”

  “You’re the expert.”

  “There is no expert. There is alive and not alive.”

  I breathed deeply, trying to relax.

  She gave me the soda. “I promise. If this is Hildegard, she will pay.”

  Yuli switched on the radio, tuning it to KFWB. The Beach Boys were in the middle of “Surfin’ Safari” when she said, “I used to read about Malibu in the movie magazines Papka bought me from the army base in Munich. Can we go see it?”

  “Sure.”

  After Santa Monica, traffic was bumper to bumper on the Pacific Coast Highway, the sun glinting on the lanes of cars and trucks, and while Yuli looked out at the sand and sea, I drank the rest of the Coke, then glanced at Emma’s Rolex and assured my grandmother that we would make things right.

  Yuli rested her head on my shoulder. “Misha, your lips are moving. Am I marrying a man who talks to his watch?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  On the radio, Chad and Jeremy were singing “A Summer Song” and the gentle harmony of the guitars and the duo’s voices seemed to lull Yuli to sleep. I couldn’t see what was going on with the traffic because the Country Squire was sandwiched between a yellow school bus and a Calicut Farms milk truck, the exterior the same black and white as a Holstein. Sick of the stop-and-go, I exited the PCH, driving down a twisting bumpy road toward the ocean, past cottages behind walls of hedges. Below a bluff there was a small sandy lot with three cars in it, and I parked and gently shook Yuli awake.

  She yawned, and I pointed at the bluff. “Great view from there, I bet.”

  We got out of the station wagon. Someone had marked off a trail up to the bluff by arranging rocks and bricks on either side of a path of sand and flattened grass. The climb wasn’t too steep, and we sat in a patch of sunlight on an outcropping. Out on the impossibly blue water, a chorus line of surfers had caught the crest of a monstrous wave.

  “Misha, do we still have other Coke?”

  “We do. Want me to get it?”

  “No, I’ll be right back.”

  The entire chorus line wiped out, the surfers and their boards bobbing in the ocean like bath toys. I was sweltering in the sun, and my mouth was dry, and I walked over to the path, expecting to meet Yuli coming up with the soda. She wasn’t there, and a Calicut Farms truck had pulled into the lot beside the Country Squire, so that I couldn’t see her, and before it consciously registered on me that something was wrong, I was racing down the path, bending to pick up a brick without breaking stride and circling behind the truck. The passenger-side door of the station wagon was open, and a balding broad-backed man in a windbreaker was facing away from me—the same man, I thought, that I’d seen reading a newspaper in the Georgian. One of his arms was around Yuli’s throat while the other one was around her waist, lifting her u
p so that her feet were off the ground. He must have come up behind her when she ducked into the car for the can of Coke, and she was attempting to free herself, wriggling her body, flailing her arms, and kicking her red sneakers back at him, all to no effect.

  Had I thought about what I was going to do, I would have been too scared to do it, but I wasn’t thinking—not about myself, but about Yuli, and especially Emma, how I hadn’t been there to save her when her murderer arrived. Dashing toward the man and spreading my arms, I squeezed the brick in my right hand, careful not to drop it, and flung myself at him full speed, head-butting his spine and ramming my shoulders into his back. Grunting, the man flew forward, Yuli squirming from his grasp and spinning off against the Country Squire. I landed on top of the man, and he bucked like a beached whale, attempting to throw me aside by pushing up off the ground with one hand and reaching back to clutch my hair with the other. He was strong and skilled enough to do it, though it was unlikely that he had ever tried these moves while someone was bashing in his head with a brick.

  More terrifying to me than my blinding rage or the harsh guttural grunts of the man when I struck him was the ease with which I surrendered my decency, shedding my morality like a snakeskin, this sugarcoated vision of myself that had been a cinch to maintain until I had to choose between protecting my precious moral superiority or someone I loved. I might as well have been born in a cave; I was no more civilized than a Neanderthal or the saber-toothed cats he hunted. I hit the man hard and fast, the blood splattering my face and greasing my fingers no more disturbing to me than rainwater, and when I heard Yuli frantically call, “Misha, enough,” I rose up, gripping the brick in both my hands, and slammed it against his skull with such force that the brick split in half.