Heidegger's Glasses

by Thaisa Frank

  Love,

  Pieter

  Hans Ewigkeit had originally planned to line the mine with thick brick walls. But even before losing Stalingrad, the Reich was pinched for money. So instead of brick walls, the Compound had thin pine walls covered with a single layer of plaster. Workers had added five coats of paint. But the Compound was a flimsy shell: Scribes put their hands on their ears when they wanted to think. Mueller had worn earmuffs.

  The only soundproof places within the entire Compound abutted the walls of the original mine. There were four, and by far the best was between two buttresses accessed through an air vent in the ceiling of the smallest water closet. It was unpleasant and cramped, but hermetically sealed. And it was to this air vent that Dieter Stumpf and Mikhail Solomon went to discuss Mikhail’s condition.

  They left the Solomons’ house after one in the morning, and Scribes were still laughing in the kitchen. Ordinarily Stumpf would have made a fuss about their being up past curfew. Instead he crept to the narrow water closet with Mikhail. They got on top of a crate, opened the vent, lifted themselves into the jagged cavern, and closed the vent behind them. The cavern was less than a meter high so they had to crouch.

  Mikhail and Stumpf adjusted to the space and kept their distance in the pitch-black dark. They both hoped fervently that no one would use the water closet because sometimes people in this cloistered dark got trapped while one hapless person after another used the facilities. Neither Stumpf nor Mikhail wanted to be confined with the other. Besides, having to hear someone piss or shit was worse than being intruded upon by another group coming up through the air vent to talk in private. By tacit agreement, every inhabitant of the Compound treated this narrow cavern as a place of asylum. Even if the intruding group included officers, they would apologize and leave.

  Mikhail’s condition for answering Heidegger’s letter was this: rescuing his niece—his sister’s only daughter. For the past five months she’d been hiding in a crawl space under the floor of a house in Northern Germany. Every week SS men came to the house and put a stethoscope to the floor, convinced the house had a heartbeat. Until now they hadn’t been able to find the exact location of the heartbeat, but it was only a matter of time. Mikhail wanted Stumpf to bring his niece to the Compound before SS men shot her or had her deported to the camps.

  Deportations weren’t supposed to be public knowledge, but Stumpf didn’t bother to deny anything. Instead, he tried to fob Mikhail off by telling him the Compound had decided not to take children: parents didn’t write to small children so they didn’t need a child to answer letters. Mikhail said his niece wasn’t exactly a child, and it never occurred to him that she would have to answer letters. The issue was saving a life.

  But everyone has to be useful here, said Stumpf.

  In that case, I can’t answer Heidegger because you won’t help me, said Mikhail.

  Even though Mikhail couldn’t see him, Stumpf looked in the other direction to hide his disappointment. Then he asked:

  How old is this girl?

  Almost sixteen. Why?

  Because she’d need to walk through the town and act calm, said Stumpf. Can she act calm?

  Of course she can act calm. How else could she spend five months in a crawl space?

  Stumpf spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness—invisible in the dark. He touched Mikhail’s shoulder by accident, jerked away, and said he didn’t know what to do. Goebbels’s orders were to deliver the glasses to Heidegger with a convincing answer to the letter. But Stumpf couldn’t write an answer himself.

  I’m a practical man, he said again.

  A dilemma, said Mikhail.

  A paradox, said Stumpf.

  They made the laborious climb out of the air vent, and Stumpf told Mikhail he would give the matter some thought. He crept past the kitchen to his shoebox of a watchtower and looked down at the Scribes, who were huddled on desks and wrestling with covers to keep warm. It occurred to him they looked like boa constrictors. Someone cried out in sleep. Someone else said to shut up. Then there was a chorus of shut ups and an upwelling of whispering.

  Stumpf pounded on the window and shouted, Order!—a command that made another Scribe shout:

  Be quiet! We’re trying to sleep!

  Stumpf watched with contempt while Scribes rearranged more blankets, and papers scattered to the floor. He considered offering all five philosophers a ham and an extra supply of cigarettes in return for writing the letter. But a conspicuous bribe could lead to gossip, and gossip could lead to chaos, and there was already enough chaos in the Compound.

  Just last week someone had scrawled Dreamatorium over the main door. Stumpf had washed it off, but it was scrawled back the next day. He considered going downstairs to wash it off again. But within moments he was asleep in his chair, his head against the glass of the watchtower.

  Every afternoon between one and one-thirty it was Stumpf’s job to order the Scribes to imagine Joseph Goebbels, the head of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. This was to prepare for Goebbels’s visit to the Compound—an event that was continually announced and postponed. The reason for the imagining, as explained to Stumpf, was so no one would be in awe of him when he did arrive and could answer his questions. Gerhardt Lodenstein allowed Stumpf to carry out the exercise so he could feel useful—an illusion that spared the Scribes from excessive rants.

  For the duration of the exercise, Scribes had to push their typewriters to the edge of the desks and put away pens and letters. Then they had to imagine Goebbels in the proper sequence, starting with his boots, on to his jodhpurs, and then to his face. There was never any mention of his clubfoot. And whoever didn’t imagine in the right order would be punished.

  Stumpf walked back and forth between desks, sorry he couldn’t make the Scribes imagine Heinrich Himmler instead and confused about how to regulate something he couldn’t see. He stared at Scribes who were trying not to laugh and gave commands:

  Imagine more quickly!

  Continue imagining!

  Proceed in the proper order!

  Nafissian was smirking. Stumpf walked to his desk and asked what he was imagining.

  Goebbels’s boots, said Nafissian.

  What do they look like?

  Black.

  Are they shiny?

  Yes.

  Wrong. We don’t know what kind of day Goebbels will have had when he visits. He could have been walking through mud. Or have a bunion and be wearing slippers.

  Be prepared for anything, he continued. Goebbels could be wearing a hairnet. But you won’t be looking that high.

  Or a housedress, said La Toya.

  Shut up! said Stumpf.

  The Scribes pursed their lips to keep from laughing. They never tried to imagine Goebbels. Instead they thought about a decent cup of coffee, or whom they’d try to seduce that night if they won the lottery for Elie’s old room. They tried not to think about what had brought them here or what had happened to the people they left behind.

  But at other times during the day—random times—on their way to the kitchen for coffee, or smoking on the cobblestone street, they saw the five-foot picture of Goebbels near the mineshaft and imagined him against their will. He was their threat and savior, the reason why they were still alive, taken from almost certain death to this place. And only Goebbels’s willingness to continue a ridiculous scheme sustained the fuliginous room where they answered letters to the dead that were stored in crates.

  Today, when the half-hour was over, Stumpf looked out at the Scribes. He felt—as he always felt after this exercise—relief and euphoria. He tapped on the blackboard and announced that the Compound was going to have a new member—a girl of almost sixteen who would be staying with the Echte Juden.

  As you know, he said, we have long needed a child to answer letters from parents to children in accordance with our strict standards of Like Answers Like. So Fraulein Schacten is going to bring a girl to the Compound. For the most part, this girl
will answer letters written by parents who are deemed to be pious. But if time permits, she’ll answer letters from parents who haven’t been deemed to be pious. So if you get a letter from a parent that is clearly to a child, put it aside for a possible collection.

  Possible or probable collection? said Parvis Nafissian.

  Both, said Stumpf.

  What about likely? said Ferdinand La Toya.

  That, too.

  La Toya winked at Gitka, who winked back. Stumpf caught the wink and was furious.

  Wink all you want, he said. There’s another mouth to feed.

  Dear Mother,

  I don’t know where you and father are, but I am writing home hoping that you will get this. Marc and I are fine and there is plenty of food. If you and father come, we will all be together again.

  Love,

  Pia

  Wolfgang Maulhaufer, the Compound’s engineer, had been so overjoyed about finding an underground stream to handle waste, he’d forgotten to supply the Compound with fresh water. And Thorsten Ungeheur, the interior designer, had more elegant concerns than drinking or washing.

  So the Compound’s only fresh water supply was the well for the original mine. It was at the edge of the forest, about nine meters from the shepherd’s hut. Before Germany lost Stalingrad, twelve guards had carried the day’s water supply in buckets. But after Stalingrad, every guard except Lars Eisenscher had been sent to the front. Lars and Lodenstein couldn’t bring enough water on their own for everyone in the Compound. And Stumpf and Mueller thought the task was beneath them.

  So in late spring of 1943 Scribes began to bring water themselves, with only Lars to watch them. This upset Stumpf, but he couldn’t disagree with Lodenstein when he said the Compound was the safest place at this stage of the war, and no one would try to escape.

  The first time the Scribes went to the well there had been a great sense of celebration. Sophie Nachtgarten, whose claustrophobia sometimes made her walk the cobblestone street for hours, said it was the first time in months she’d been able to breathe. Ferdinand La Toya and Gitka Kapusinki did a mazurka. Parvis Nafissian and Sonia Markova lay at the edge of the forest.

  Now, almost a year later, going to the well was so routine most Scribes took fresh air for granted—except for Sophie Nachtgarten, who bribed Lars with cigarettes so she could come up as many times as she wanted. Other Scribes carried water twice a day, usually in pairs.

  But after Stumpf announced the arrival of a girl who would answer letters from children, Gitka Kapusinki, Ferdinand La Toya, Sophie Nachtgarten, and Parvis Nafissian took turns holding a pail. Gitka wore a bright red scarf over a black fur coat from an indeterminate animal and smoked a cigarette from a long cigarette holder. La Toya smoked a cigar and wore a long black coat, which made him look like a piece of topiary because he was tall. Sophie wore a green embroidered scarf over a blue velvet jacket—she hated the confinement of warm clothes. And Parvis Nafissian, who combed his immaculate beard with water from the well, wore a bomber jacket and carried a mirror. They crunched over the ice and talked.

  What an asshole, said Gitka, meaning Stumpf.

  He had to get someone to write that letter, said La Toya. And I think it’s Mikhail.

  He’d never do anything for Stumpf, said Sophie.

  How else can you explain it? said La Toya. Suddenly a kid’s at the Solomons’ and Stumpf announces it. I bet the two of them made a deal. And it started with Heidegger’s wife.

  How do you know? said Nafissian.

  Elie told me, said La Toya. Her name is Elfriede. Elfriede Heidegger.

  The name sounded funny. They laughed.

  Elie says she’s quite the hausfrau, said La Toya. Blond braids around her head. A Party member in good standing.

  How does Elie know? said Nafissian.

  La Toya shrugged. The other three understood. Sometimes Elie alluded to her past, never mentioning names. Now and then dusk would remind her of dinner with her family. Or the smell of fresh ink and paper of being a student at Freiburg. She never told anyone her real last name. Or that she had a younger sister she missed every day. But they all knew a small part of who Elie was before she came to the Compound and were relieved they’d never read Heidegger closely and would find it hard to answer the letter.

  His wife bothered Goebbels so much, said La Toya, they had a meeting. So now Goebbels has another mission here—a letter to the living.

  They’d come to the well and stopped to look at the woods and drink water from the tin dipper. Sophie waved at Lars Eisenscher who was keeping watch near the forest.

  How awful that the woods are so frightening, she said. When I was a child, the woods were amazing in winter.

  They could get more frightening if Mikhail tries to answer that letter, said Nafissian. Heidegger’s no fool—he’ll see through something fake. Maybe we should have tried to answer it, after all.

  We would have made a mess of it, said Sophie. And Mikhail’s studied Heidegger, so his letter won’t seem fake.

  Gitka and Nafissian stopped to light more cigarettes; La Toya relit his cigar. The wind rose at their backs as they took turns carrying the bucket to the Compound. Nafissian said it created the impression they were traveling.

  Don’t be ridiculous, said La Toya, nobody travels here.

  If the wind blows hard enough, they will, said Nafissian.

  Let’s make a run for it, said Gitka, laughing.

  To where? said La Toya.

  To the end of the world, said Gitka.

  Dearest Bendykta,

  I don’t have much time to write because I have to work. Please come quickly.

  In haste and love,

  Lucas

  Dieter Stumpf never had any intention of getting Mikhail’s niece himself because if he went to a safe house, he might be recognized and shot. Besides, it was more important to be sure as many dead as possible received answers to their letters. So he asked Elie Schacten to get the girl.

  Her name is Maria, he said, handing her the address of the safe house, and a note to her from Mikhail. And Mikhail will write the letter if we get her. You know Mikhail. Always a bargain.

  Of course I’ll get her, Dieter, Elie said.

  I knew you would. You rescue everyone.

  I’m only doing this for you, said Elie.

  Stumpf leaned close and basked in her tea-rose perfume.

  Let’s keep it between us for now, he said, touching Elie’s arm. Lodenstein doesn’t give a damn about this letter, and he hates bargains. He might try to stop you.

  Elie, who had already decided that more than one bargain was at stake, agreed. She went upstairs and told Lodenstein there was an influx of mail at the outpost. Then she held out her wrist so he could tie the red silk ribbon.

  Do you think this place runs by itself? he said.

  No, said Elie. What makes you think that?

  Because sometimes you act like it does. I wonder if you know how many notes I send Goebbels to make him happy. Dear Goebbels: We love your stories about winning the war. Keep them up. And your denials about the Final Solution are breathtaking.

  I’ll bring you something special, said Elie.

  Just come back, said Lodenstein.

  He walked her to her jeep, and she drove off on the unpaved road. It was treacherously slick. But when she turned to the paved road, she wasn’t relieved because there were other cars, and no rescue was without danger. On her last foray, Elie had hidden three children under a marble statue covered with blankets. Everything had gone smoothly until an SS officer at the Swiss border began to uncover the statue. Elie said it was for Frisch—a banker she thought he’d know. He pressed her arm, she pressed back, and an erotic current passed between them. Go! he’d said. And go quickly!

  She kept looking in the rearview mirror—an endless stretch of road and cars. She felt remorse about lying to Lodenstein and was haunted by a vision of him running to keep up with her.

  Maria’s safe house was in a town due south o
f the Compound and—to Elie’s relief—she had to take a road that forked off the main highway. She drove by farms and a dense forest, where she saw a man and a child behind a tree. She thought about the Angel of Auschwitz who had bargained a laboratory for a life. She wondered if a letter could do the same.

  The town with the safe house was a patchwork of commerce and neglect, like other towns that hadn’t been bombed beyond recognition at this stage of the war. It dipped into dilapidated structures then bloomed into islands of prosperity. One street had boarded-up buildings throbbing with misery. Another had elegant shops. Yet another had a train station where people held suitcases. They were dressed in good coats, but Elie knew in less than a week they’d be wearing striped uniforms. She parked the jeep in a crowded section and began to walk. A jeep with a swastika in front of a safe house would attract attention.