The Nazi Hunter

by Alan Elsner

  “Mostly stuff from the sixties and seventies—the Beatles, Dylan, Baez, Joni Mitchell—you may have heard of some of them. I've been listening to a lot of Schubert and Schumann lately, for obvious reasons.”

  She grimaced. “That's work. I asked about fun. How old did you say you were? Sixty? Seventy?”

  “Well, what do you do for fun?” I asked, a bit stung. “I suppose you like staying out all night drinking and carousing.”

  “No, that's not me at all. I'm an early-to-bed kind of girl.’

  “So strolls on moonlit beaches and romantic evenings in front of the fireplace?”

  “Now you're talking. I love that kind of thing. Wouldn't you, if it was with the right person?”

  It did sound nice. With the right person.

  Half an hour later, I was standing on the sidewalk with Lynn, hailing a taxi. The cab pulled up, she stood on tiptoes and kissed me on the lips, and it was over. “Happy holidays,” she said, climbing into the cab. And she was gone.

  That night I listened to Delatrucha sing a cycle called Die Schöne Müllerin, “The Beautiful Miller Girl.” It began with the piano mimicking the sound of water gurgling down a stream toward a water mill. The narrator is in love, and for a brief moment it seems the miller's lovely daughter returns his feelings. Delatrucha's voice lifted to an incredible, ecstatic climax. “Let one song alone echo today; the beloved miller girl is mine! Mine!” I found myself rooting for the guy. In my mind, I was the narrator, and Lynn was the beautiful mill girl.

  Of course, in the song cycle, things pretty soon go sour for the poor old narrator, as they usually do in German poetry. It's the ageold story: the miller girl catches sight of a dashing hunter, a much more glamorous fellow, and makes eyes at him. Jealousy seizes the narrator. He can't bear it, and by the end of the song cycle he's done away with himself and is resting comfortably in his grave, where all gloomy German poets end up. For a moment, I felt sorry for the poor schmuck. But then I asked myself,Why am I identifying with a loser like him, when the hunter gets the girl? I'm a hunter myself, of sorts. Of course, she was all wrong for me. For one thing, she wasn't even religious. My mind knew that, but my body wasn't listening.

  As for Delatrucha, he may or may not have lied about his past, but he was a wonderful singer. In that one delirious stanza, he captured all the dizzy, heady exhilaration of the beginnings of love. I went to bed thinking about the kiss, Schubert playing in my head.

  I had a small hangover next morning, but Lynn seemed totally unaffected when we met to discuss Señor Roberto Delatrucha. Just seeing her produced a rush of blood to my head (and elsewhere). Delatrucha's file had just arrived from the INS, George reported. Today he was wearing a tie depicting ducks in flight that clashed violently with his bright red shirt.

  “Delatrucha arrived here in 1951 from Argentina,” George said, stretching his legs halfway across the office. “In 1952, he married a woman called Mary Scott. That was his basis for applying for U.S. citizenship, which he obtained in 1958.”

  “Place of birth?” I asked.

  “L'viv, the Soviet Union.”

  “And the date?”

  “October 8, 1920.” I wrote it down on my legal pad, frowning.

  “L'viv wasn't in the Soviet Union then,” I said. “Before 1918, it was ruled by Austria. And after the Treaty of Versailles, it was in Poland.”

  “It did have a large population of Volksdeutsche,” George observed.

  “Of what?” Lynn asked. “English please, you guys.”

  “Volksdeutsche. Ethnic Germans,” I said. “When did he pick up the name Delatrucha?”

  “He already had it when he arrived here,” George said. “But on his U.S. immigration form, he was required to provide his former name. He gave Roberto Schnellinger, definitely a German name. I did a search of CROWCASS files for Schnellinger. And guess what I found?”

  “What?” we both asked.

  “Nothing,” George said flatly. “There are no Schnellingers listed.” CROWCASS is the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects. It's a list that was drawn up by the U.S. military after Germany surrendered in 1945. A CROWCASS listing was equivalent to an arrest warrant. Anyone on the list who was found was supposed to be arrested and handed over to the Allies for trial.

  “What about German sources?” I asked. The best source of German war records was the Berlin Document Center, operated for many years by the U.S. State Department but recently remanded to the Germans. It was the world's largest trove of captured Nazi personnel files, and included an almost complete collection of SS records.

  “I put in requests to see if the document center has any Schnellingers on file,” said George. “It will probably take a couple of weeks for them to respond. We won't get anything until well after Christmas. Germans take the holiday season very seriously. Have you ever spent Christmas in Germany, Mark?”

  “No,” I said. “Nor do I want to. I dread hearing ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’ in German.” I turned to Lynn, who was clutching a folder bulging with press clips and photocopies. She was wearing a pink turtleneck cashmere sweater and a pair of dark honey earrings that complemented her eyes. She put on a pair of granny spectacles, which she probably didn't need, shuffled a couple of papers, and began.

  “First the name,” she said. “Roberto of the trout.”

  “What?” we chorused again.

  “Delatrucha. It's Spanish for ‘of the trout.’

  ““As in the Trout Quintet,” said George. He began warbling tunelessly. From his lips, it sounded like a Moldavian love song.

  “Okay, okay, we get the picture,” I said. “There's also a song called ‘The Trout’ on one of the CDs I bought. About a guy who hooks a trout and watches it die.”

  “Why would he choose such an obviously fake name?” George asked.

  “Lots of artists and actors take stage names, so let's not jump to conclusions. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. What else do you have, Lynn?” I asked.

  “There's a bunch of material about his accompanist, Mary Scott,” Lynn continued. “They divorced in 1985, and he got a new one.”

  “New accompanist or new wife?” George asked.

  “Both,” Lynn said. “Her name is Elissa Horne. She's like thirty years younger than him, which is totally gross, if you ask me.”

  “What else?” George asked.

  “Delatrucha came here on a fellowship for young foreign musicians to spend a year at Juilliard. That's where he met Mary. She was a piano student. They teamed up to give a concert. It was a huge success. I called the New York Times archives, and they dug up the review for me and faxed it over.” She handed each of us a photocopy, dated February 20, 1952.

  Roberto Delatrucha, a newcomer to our shores from Argentina, revealed himself last night as a mature and gifted artist of caressing subtlety and poetic expression. Ably accompanied by Mary Scott, Delatrucha masterfully crafted a mood of profound engagement in a performance of Schubert's Winterreise. His powerful voice effortlessly led a rapt audience into the very heart of darkness at the center of the cycle.

  “It all comes back to Winterreise,” I muttered.

  “It's like his signature piece,” said Lynn. “He says it's the work he feels closest to.” I found myself suddenly recalling our kiss. God, she was cute in those silly glasses. She flashed me a grin. I wrenched my mind back to the subject at hand.

  “What else have you got?” I asked.

  “A whole bunch of other reviews, but they're basically more of the same. Everyone agrees he's an awesome singer. He quit singing in public a few years ago, but he still teaches down at the University of Florida. He seems totally into his privacy, with one exception, which is that he's listed as a major Republican Party donor. He gave a lot of money to the GOP in the past election, and even took part in a fundraiser for Mitch Conroy, where he sang ‘America the Beautiful.’” She passed around a clipping from the Orlando Sentinel describing the event.

  “Interesting but
probably not relevant to this inquiry,” I said. “It's certainly no crime to be a Republican. Some of this office's best friends and supporters are Republicans. So let's drop that one. Tell us more about his new wife.”

  “He dumped Mary in 1984 and teamed up with this new Elissa chick, who was actually once one of Mary's pupils. She's apparently not nearly as good a pianist as Mary, but she's probably better in the sack.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “About her bedroom talents?”

  “About her talents as a pianist.”

  “I spoke to a music professor at George Washington University. Bill McDuffy. My friend Amy takes singing lessons from him. He's a big Schubert buff.”

  “Did you tell him why you were interested in Delatrucha?”

  “I said I was a student doing a paper. Anyway, once he got going, there was no stopping him. He said Roberto had this almighty blowup with his wife and daughter a few years ago.”

  “Daughter?” George asked.

  “Roberto and Mary's one kid, Susan, born 1958. She took her mother's maiden name after her parents divorced. Apparently, she was a promising musician as a child, but she never made it. Now she works as a book agent in Boston. A couple of years ago, Mr. Trout won some big award. They got Isaac Stern, the famous violinist, to present it, but then Mary shows up in the audience and goes bananas, cursing at Roberto from the bleachers. They had to drag her out. McDuffy remembers it ’cause he was there.”

  “Good stuff,” I said.

  “There's more,” said Lynn. “Roberto hasn't performed in Germany or Austria for ages, not since the early seventies, even though he's mega popular there and it's the birthplace of lieder. He hasn't set foot there for twenty years. It's raised some eyebrows, but he's never given an explanation.”

  “Interesting. Maybe he didn't want to be recognized by anyone who knew him during the war,” George said. It was in the 1970s that interest in the Holocaust and war criminals had started to reawaken in Germany. In the 1950s and ’60s, former Nazis still made up a large part of the population. Most led untroubled lives in a nation that was still sympathetic to them. “Did you find anything about his early years?”

  “Almost nothing. I mean, this guy is truly fanatical about his privacy. If he gives interviews, it's just to speak about music, never about himself.”

  “That might indicate he has something to hide,” I said.

  “You're stretching it, Mark. It might just mean he likes his privacy. I like mine, too,” George countered.

  “You're right. I'm reaching,” I conceded.

  “But this guy goes further than that,” Lynn said. “I couldn't find anything in the clips even about where he was born, not a single word. Nothing about his mother or father. Nothing about where he went to school. Nothing about the war, which he must have lived through, wherever he was. Just a totally blank slate.”

  “So we're not left with very much,” I said, summing up. “Just a bunch of unanswered questions and some vague suspicions.”

  “The response from the Document Center might clear up some things when it arrives,” George said. “But I wouldn't get my hopes up too high. Even if this guy is originally German, there's no guarantee that Schnellinger's his real name. People took on new identities all the time in the confusion at the end of the war.”

  “I have more sources I can check, if you think it's worth it,” Lynn said. “I haven't finished going through all the newspaper databases. And I also want to find out more about his wife and daughter.”

  “Well, you've piqued my curiosity, even if you didn't find much,” I said. “What you didn't find is almost more interesting than what you did. I don't really have a sense about this guy yet one way or the other. It won't do any harm to keep searching. Let's meet again next week to see if there's any point continuing.”

  “Fair enough,” said George, and left the room. Lynn got up to follow. I gestured for her to stay. “Lynn, about last night,” I began.

  “I was a little drunk. But you're allowed to kiss anyone you want at the Christmas party,” she interjected. “It doesn't mean anything. Everyone knows that.”

  “Oh,” I said, failing to disguise my disappointment. “All right. Fair enough. As long as that's understood, then.”

  “Totally,” she said.

  Then she leaned forward and kissed me again.

  7

  A friendly light dances in front of me;

  I follow it hither and thither.

  —“PRETENSE” BY WILHELM MÜLLER, MUSIC BY FRANZ SCHUBERT

  ON FRIDAY EVENING, after Shabbat services, I dutifully appeared at David and Judy's home, bottle of wine in hand. They were getting ready to put their kids to bed, but first the seven-year-old had to play the piano for us. The proud parents beamed as he struggled through the first two pages of “Für Elise.” We all applauded enthusiastically. The kids were settled for the night, and the grown-ups sat down for dinner. I was seated opposite Sara Barclay, a petite woman with an attractive oval face, limpid gray eyes, and a quiet air of unflappable calm about her. We assessed each other across the table like fencers looking for an opening. To my surprise, I enjoyed the evening. Sara was both attractive and sharp-witted, and conversation flowed easily. Judy asked us both if we didn't find our jobs too depressing, having to deal with the Holocaust all the time. I ducked the question, mumbling something about justice, but Sara jumped right in.

  “It's not at all depressing. It's uplifting. Just today, a middle-aged man came in with his mother, a survivor, to make a video recording of her story. We collect survivors’ stories in the museum, as you may know. They brought two of her grandchildren as well—both teenagers. I listened in. It was truly inspiring,” she said.

  “Tell us,” we all urged her.

  “The woman was only about thirteen when they transported her entire family to one of the camps. She was already half-starved and very skinny. There was a slight opening in the cattle car they were traveling on, and her parents saw she could squeeze through the gap. They made her jump off the train. They knew they were going to their deaths, but they were too big to fit through themselves. And they were desperate for her to live. She landed in the snow and hurt her leg; a Polish peasant found her and sheltered her for over two years. Of course, she never saw the rest of her family again.”

  “That's not depressing?” David asked.

  “Well, of course it is tragic. But it's also inspiring. It shows her will to live and her family's will for her to live and the humanity and heroism of the family that sheltered her. As the Torah teaches, she chose life. And there she was today with her son and grandchildren by her side. Her parents’ hopes were fulfilled. So, yes, it was sad, but not depressing.”

  David was right. Under different circumstances, she would have been perfect for me. As we said good night, I brushed her cheeks with my lips, wondering if I should see her again. But it would have been unfair; my mind was too full of Lynn, whose very touch produced an electric spark. How can you explain the power of two brief kisses? I couldn't stop thinking about them.

  I walked home after dinner. I never drove on Shabbat, but there seemed little reason to be worried about walking through the city alone. Nothing had happened since the windshield-wiper incident, and I had recovered my nerve.

  But as I turned the first corner, I had a strange feeling I was being followed. It was difficult to explain—a creepy sensation on the back of my neck. I kept looking around, but it was hard to see anything in the dark. Stupidly, I had left the whistle in my briefcase. The pepper spray hadn't arrived yet. All my senses stretched extra thin. The least little sound seemed ominous. I started jogging, then broke into a sprint, wearing my overcoat and dress shoes. I doubled back down a couple of streets, then realized how irrational I was being. They'd been to my apartment building. I stopped running and walked the rest of the way, looking over my shoulder the whole way.

  At home, I touched the mezuzah with my fingertip, kissed it, and entered the da
rkened apartment. The only light was in the kitchen. It remained on throughout Shabbat, while all the other lights stayed off. But as I went into the bedroom, I saw the light blinking on my answering machine. Usually I disconnected the phone on Friday afternoon so nothing would intrude on the day of rest; this week I had forgotten to. I threw a pillow over the machine so I wouldn't have to keep looking at the light blinking all day.

  At shul next morning, the rabbi spoke about the situation in Bosnia. “Just as they did after the Holocaust, some will ask, ‘Where is God?’” he said. “To go around blaming God for man-made tragedies makes no sense. The question is not, ‘Where was God during the Holocaust?’ The right question is, ‘Where was man?’” Agreement rumbled from the congregation.

  “Look at it from God's point of view. Faced with our accusations, what would He say? God might say,‘I created this world, but I asked you to care for it and for each other. Go ahead and pray to me, but understand it is you who have the responsibility for your actions. You can look to the heavens and charge me with cruelty but it is you who are killing each other all over the world, not I. So don't ask where I am. The real question is,Where are you?’”

  The rabbi continued: “Our task, which God gave us, is to perfect the world. As The Ethics of the Father teaches, we do not have to complete the work personally, but the enormity of the task does not excuse us from not trying. God asks, ‘When will you take steps to perfect My world?’”

  In the afternoon, I had a long nap before returning to shul for afternoon prayers. The sun set by late afternoon, so Shabbat ended early. Once it was over and I had recited the Havdalah blessings welcoming the new week, I removed the pillow from the answering machine and retrieved my messages. There were four; the first three callers had hung up without saying anything. The fourth was from someone called Jerrold Osterman—Jennifer's elder brother—asking me to call and leaving a number. He lived in Silicon Valley, and I had never spoken to him. Strange. I dialed the number. A woman answered and told me to wait a second. There was a rumble of conversation in the background, as if a large number of people were there.