by Susan Isaacs
“It must have been a double blow,” he said. “She was the last of your immediate family, wasn’t she?”
“I really don’t feel like talking about it.”
“All right. I understand.”
He did, a second later. All of a sudden, we had one of our flashes of tacit understanding. We were looking at each other, and just like that, he stiffened. He knew that I knew—not only about John and Nan but about his knowledge of the whole business. The whole affair. Then Edward did what I never thought I’d see him do: He averted his eyes. Suddenly, a telephone message on the edge of his desk became overwhelmingly important. He picked it up and studied it as if it was a new cryptographic code he was just getting familiar with.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’ve got to get to work. That girl you had sitting in for me left about three days’ worth of dictation to transcribe, and her shorthand’s a mess.”
He put the piece of paper back down. “Linda,” he began. Then his voice fell, and I had to strain to hear him. “I don’t know what to say, but I want to say something. I—”
“Thanks for your condolences.” And then I walked out of the room.
I became an efficient machine. For days I followed Edward to meetings, took dictation, answered phones, typed, translated. The line of refugees streaming in, offering up information, grew longer and longer. The anteroom where I worked was packed with people on folding chairs, chalky-faced people who never looked right into anyone’s eyes—not mine, not each other’s. They studied the floor, or their shoes.
When Edward was ready for the next one, I’d say, “Frau Schluter [or: Herr Abendroth], please follow me.” And they’d shuffle inside, staring down at the floor like it was a treacherous path that might crack open, engulf them and then smash shut, crushing them so they couldn’t even shriek for help before they were obliterated forever. For every one of them, I’d think: Poor lady, Poor guy, as I steered them over to the couch. Because Edward would never just question them, seeking out whatever intelligence he needed; he always wanted to know what had happened to them. So when I translated their unbearably sad stories, I’d think: Terrible. But it was the automatic pity of a machine. Tsk-tsk. Next. Tsk-tsk.
But then, a week after I went back to work, I led Werner Liedtke into Edward’s office. He’d worked for the electric utility in Berlin, dispatching meter readers all over the city: an ordinary man, but one who might confirm or challenge the information we’d been getting on power-generating plants all over northern Germany.
“Would you like some coffee?” Edward asked him. Herr Liedtke, who had come into Philadelphia two days before on a boat full of refugees, didn’t speak any English, so I translated as I took notes.
“No, thank you,” he said. “No coffee.” He gazed down at his shoes. New shoes, American, maybe a little too wide for him.
“The government of the United States appreciates your cooperation in coming here today. We know it must be difficult to talk about what you have just left, but we need all the details, all the facts, we can get.”
“Thank you, sir,” Herr Liedtke mumbled.
“And it is urgent that we get whatever information we can on power generation as soon as possible, before conditions change.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you come here alone?”
“Yes. Alone.”
“Do you have any family still in Germany?”
“My family…My brothers. A sister.”
“Are you Jewish?”
“Oh, no. Not me.” He pulled back his feet and hunched over, as if trying to make himself smaller, less of a target. “My wife. She was a Jew. They took her in 1940. May 18. Gestapo came to the apartment and said, ‘Ruth Liedtke?’ and she said ‘Yes.’”
“And they took her then?” Edward asked softly.
“Yes.”
“You never saw her again?”
“No.”
I thought to myself: How many of these pathetic stories did Edward want to hear? “Did you have any children?” he asked.
“A boy.”
“What is his name?” Herr Liedtke shook his head. “I’m sorry,” Edward said. “I won’t ask you any more—”
I was translating almost simultaneously, and so we were both interrupted when Herr Liedtke said, “Jurgen. His name was Jurgen,” he said to his new American shoes.
“I see,” Edward said.
“No. He was not taken when they took my wife. After that…nothing happened. I waited, but a long time passed and I knew…I thought: Jurgen is safe. He was allowed to go to school. No questions were asked. He was a good boy. Twelve, he was. He’d been a little fat, but he was growing, you know, so he grew more lean, except his face was round.”
“He sounds very nice,” Edward said. “A fine boy.”
“Yes. A fine boy.” The father shook his head. His hair was gray. He had a bald spot the size of a silver dollar. “There was a roundup of Jews the last week of June. I didn’t fear very much. But suddenly they were at the door, banging on it, kicking with their boots, terrible noise, and they ask for Jurgen and I show them the boy and say, ‘Look, he is no…’ And I show them his papers. ‘See?’ I said. There were two of them. They each took an arm and dragged Jurgen out, down four flights of stairs. I ran after, and all the time he was screaming. ‘Father!’ And they dragged him over to a small bus and tried to put him on and I ran to him and he was screaming and they told him to shut up and get on, but still he was screaming. ‘Father!’”
Herr Liedtke spoke in a monotone, and I tried to translate like that, but I called out “Father!” too loud.
Herr Liedtke said “‘Father!’” again, quietly, but his hands stretched out, involuntarily, reaching for his son. “A soldier came down off the bus. Not Gestapo. An ordinary soldier with a rifle. A rifle with a bayonet. And Jurgen struggled with the men holding him, trying to break away, and all the time screaming for me, and I ran toward him, but before I could get there…” He lifted up his head and looked into Edward’s eyes. “The soldier—just a regular soldier—he drove the bayonet into Jurgen’s throat. To silence him.” Herr Liedtke touched his Adam’s apple with his index finger. “There was blood, so much of it, and his mouth said ‘Father,’ but he could not speak. And he could not…he could not die yet. He was in agony. Oh, his eyes. My boy’s eyes, crying for me to help him, then looking down…at the thing in his throat. He didn’t believe…He kept waiting for me to help him.” Herr Liedtke’s eyes were dry.
I turned in my chair, so I could look out the window, hide my face. Edward said, “Linda?”
“I’m fine,” I said. I could see that nice, fat-faced boy, howling in terror, making no sound. My shoulders jerked. A shudder. A convulsion. A machine breaking down.
“Try to keep going, if you can,” Edward said to me.
“Yes,” I said. “I can.”
Herr Liedtke’s voice remained flat. “The soldier pulled out his bayonet. The blood then. He was almost gone. I was nearly beside him as he started to fall. But they would not give me…my Jurgen. They hauled him onto the bus, had the driver shut the door so he wouldn’t tumble out. They drove away.” He shrugged. “And that was the end of it.”
Two weeks later, at the beginning of August, on a day so cool and pleasant and, therefore, so abnormal for Washington that it was almost suspect, part of some sinister Axis plot, Norman Weekes came to Edward’s office to discuss the OSS’s crisis in Berlin. He had not given up a single member of his usual company of six; they trooped behind him in twos, like obedient first graders.
The ill-will level was lower than it had been at the earlier meeting. The two groups of men seemed to realize that since Donovan did not have the time to fire Norman Weekes (and perhaps also to realize that Norman’s Boston bank gave its New York business to Donovan’s law firm), they were doomed to work with each other. They were gathered in the couch and chairs around the coffee table, which was covered with legal pads, pens, coffee cups, water glasses and ashtrays. Everyone wa
s determinedly congenial.
Well, except for Edward and John. They sat beside each other, but the relaxed give-and-take between colleagues had been replaced by strain. Bad strain. John’s head was drawn down, his shoulders up, as if he half expected any minute to be yelled at.
Maybe he thought he had it coming. Three nights before, he’d slipped out of bed. It was two-thirty. I’d murmured—fake-murmured, since I’d woken up startled and full of dread—What’s the matter? and he’d said, Shh, go back to sleep. I’m just going downstairs for a glass of milk. When he’d been gone for a minute, I’d tiptoed to the head of the stairs. There were no sounds at all. But then I heard him hang up the phone. I went back to bed and pretended to be asleep. All of a sudden, I knew what the word “heartsick” meant.
The next night, John called home a little before eleven. We have a bad situation at one of the safe houses. I’ll be late, Linda. He came home at three. His hair was perfect, just combed. I knew. I knew. It’s Nan, isn’t it? She’s back. No, he said. I swear.
Whenever Edward spoke to John, he turned toward him but never quite looked at him.
“Norman,” Edward said, “we’ve gone over your list of candidates for the, um, position vacated by Alfred Eckert. We’ve read your evaluations, had a look at their security clearance reports where they existed and done some preliminary investigating on our own. Shall we take them one at a time?”
“It’s your meeting, Ed,” Norman said. They both smiled, hiding their loathing of each other pretty well.
I sat about two feet away from Edward. We were both facing Norman, who’d obviously just been to the barber, and a bad one; his one claim to distinction, his white hair, had been cropped close to his head, so he looked less like a Boston big shot and more like some old man who’d somehow been captured and sent away for basic training. Throughout the meeting, his hand kept drifting up to where his tufted sideburns used to be. He felt vulnerable.
Edward opened the first of three folders on his lap. From where I sat, it looked as if John had a couple more. I couldn’t stand to look at him. He was so beautiful. The night before, he’d called and said he had to conduct an interrogation. He’d called again around midnight. This is going very slowly, he said. I said, Why can’t you be man enough to tell the truth? Would you stop your nagging! he’d snapped. Then I heard his deep intake of breath. All right, he said, I’m with Nan. Then he added quickly, But we’re just talking. They must have had a lot to say. He didn’t come home at all.
“Klaus-Dieter Fischer,” Edward said. “Age, twenty-seven. Born in Leipzig. Moved to Berlin in 1925, at age ten. Father taught history at a Gymnasium—the German equivalent of a high school—and was also a Communist, something of a rabble-rouser. Father lost his job in ’33, arrested in ’34, presumed dead. Klaus-Dieter took up the cause, handed out pamphlets, escaped to Czechoslovakia in ’35, just before he was about to be arrested. Escaped again to England in July ’39, again by the skin of his teeth. Has worked at odd jobs—grocery clerk, waiter—but lives for the party. Made overtures to British intelligence, but they turned him down because of his political leanings.” Edward closed the folder. “We should decline too. His loyalty is highly suspect.”
“He’s willing to go in wherever we want him,” Norman said. “And I’ve spent time with him. He is a Communist, but a realist too. Not at all the raving ideologue.”
“Is it likely he’d wave Das Kapital in your face?” Edward demanded. Everyone chuckled. “He wants the job, Norman. And from what we can gather, he wants it badly—so he can pass information back to the Russians.”
“They are our ally, after all,” Norman protested, although without much conviction. A moment later, he waved his hand and said, “Next.”
“Hugo Dreyer. Age, fifty-two. Born, raised and currently living in Berlin. Secretary to an officer of I. G. Farben, has been passing information to us for years through Sunflower.”
“He’s really ideal,” Norman said. “Right in place. And willing.”
“Excuse me,” John broke in. “He’s out of the picture. He had a stroke three weeks ago. He’s incapacitated.”
“I see,” Norman said. He flashed a look of such malice at one of his men that if I’d been that guy, I would have had a stroke myself. Then Norman turned back to John, gracious, amicable. “Any more surprises?”
John smiled. For a man who had been up all night, John still had unlimited energy to charm. The entire espionage unit smiled back. Even Norman bared his yellow teeth. “No surprises I know of, Norman. Unless Ed…”
Edward alone remained uncharmed. John’s smile faded. Edward simply shook his head. “No surprises. Well, perhaps, in that for once I’m not going to give you an argument, Norman.” He lifted the last folder on his pile. “Peter Fuhrmann. I don’t have to go through his credentials. He’s done some remarkable work for Special Operations in Hamburg. He appears clean as a whistle. I think he’s your man, Norman.”
“Well, I have a surprise for you,” Norman said. “Peter wants out. Out of Hamburg. Out of intelligence entirely. He’s pleading exhaustion, and his contact seems to agree—says he’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Sorry to have put you to all this work. We just received the message this morning.”
“Quite all right,” Edward said. Norman nodded, and everyone in the room muttered “Too damn bad” or something like it. “All right.” Edward glanced at John, but it was an icy glance, and he didn’t say his name. “You checked on the last two fellows. Please report.”
“Hans Kuhn. Age, thirty-nine. A lawyer. Born in Cincinnati of German parents, moved back to Dresden when he was eighteen.” John adjusted and readjusted his tie in a nervous, almost desperate manner. Edward’s coldness had thrown him completely. “He’s a single practitioner in Berlin, and from time to time has passed information on to us through Alfred Eckert. We’ve done what checking we could, with refugees, lawyers who practiced in Berlin, and from everything we can gather, he’s no good.”
“No good in what way?” Norman asked, almost off-handedly.
“Rumors he’s looted escrow accounts, stolen from widows and orphans. That sort of thing. Womanizer. One person claimed to have seen him drunk and disorderly.”
“Sounds like one of your partners, Ed,” Norman chortled.
“Sounds like quite a few of them,” Edward responded.
There was subdued male laughter. Everything was still pleasant.
“The last name on the list is Erich Erdmann.” Norman’s face brightened; I could see this was his man. “Forty years old. Born in Munich. Professor of Romance languages at the university in Munich until 1935. Jewish. Came to the U.S. in ’36. Taught at Tufts until this year, when he came to work for the OSS…Foreign Nationalities unit.”
“He wants to go back in,” Norman said. “He’s cultured, good-looking. According to Rex”—Rex was Norman’s highest-placed spy, a career man who had worked in the foreign office since before the First World War but had had little contact with Alfred’s important Nazi official—“someone sophisticated like Erdmann would appeal to the foreign office fellow. And he’s open to any suggestion we have.”
“That’s the drawback, as far as I’m concerned,” Edward said. “All this Erdmann wants is to make trouble for the Germans. It’s certainly a commendable goal, but he’s too intent on revenge. I’d send him in with a demolition team in a minute—if we could slip in a team and they needed a professor of Romance languages with them. But he’s seething with anger, Norman. You can’t send someone like that on a mission that requires infinite patience and self-control.”
“I think he could control himself if he’s willing to keep his eye on the ultimate objective,” Norman said. “And I know he’s more than willing.”
“But he’ll be in there alone,” Edward said. “He’ll have no one to get him to shape up when he starts losing his sense of balance. Look, whoever takes Alfred Eckert’s place is going to have to walk on an invisible tightrope. We know there’s a traitor in the resista
nce movement. People will be suspicious. We’ll have to ease him in with extraordinary canniness. And only one person—as yet to be determined—will know his true identity. Then, gradually, he’ll have to make a place for himself. It’s an operation that calls for great subtlety, and this Erich Erdmann, for all his academic attainments, is about as subtle as a bull in a china shop.”
“But we’re desperate,” Norman interrupted. “Goddamn it, Ed, you keep shooting down almost every candidate we come up with.”
“Then come up with better candidates,” Edward replied. The congeniality was evaporating fast.
“Erich’s a courageous man. I tell you, he would rise to the occasion.”
“He’d fall flat on his face. He can’t even sit through an interview with me without banging his fist on the table every thirty seconds for punctuation. The man has no command over his emotions. It’s not that I blame him. Believe me, I understand his rage. I applaud it.”
“He doesn’t look Jewish,” Norman said. “He’d fit right in.”
“I don’t care if he looks like the archbishop of Canterbury. He’s an accident going someplace to happen, and I’m not going to let it happen in Berlin. I’m against him. I vote no.”
“Ed—”
“I’ll go to the mat with you on this one, Norman.”
The veins in Norman’s neck and temples started to bulge. His face got so red it was almost purple. He tried to yell, but he was so infuriated he choked on his words. “You’re doing this deliberately!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t a plot to foil you. But I won’t allow any more suicide missions. I won’t send a man to a meaningless, unnecessary death.”
“I need an agent! You find one for me, then, goddamn it to hell! You find me a man we can slip in, someone with the brains and guts to knock on a Nazi’s door and invite himself in.”
There was silence. John, weary, closed his eyes. And all of a sudden, I found myself asking: “Hey, how about me?”