by John Smolens
We had no choice then but to explain everything to her, which we did over several rounds. She wanted to know why I had contacted her. When I said that she was the only American I knew, she laughed. “You don’t know what I am? You have no idea? I’m a pacifist,” she whispered. “And a member of the American Communist Party.”
“This is curious,” I said. “Why are you not in prison?”
She finished her Manhattan, an awful-looking drink with a red cherry in it. “Honey, they would love to land me in prison.”
She offered to let us stay at her apartment for a few days. She also said she would take Claire to a doctor she knew at the university. And she talked about people who might be able to help us find work and a place to live. When we left the pub we walked several blocks, slowly, but stopped when we turned a corner: a policeman stood on the sidewalk next to our car, writing a ticket.
“The license plates,” I said to the professor. “They’re stolen.”
“Then we need to leave it,” she said.
“But our suitcase,” Claire said. “It has everything in it—”
“It won’t be safe to go near that car now,” the professor said. “We’ll take the DSR.”
“The DSR?” I said.
She pointed at the trolley car coming around the street corner, its steel wheels squealing on the curved track. “It’s short for Department of Street Railways,” she shouted above the noise. “The thing you have to learn about Americans is that anything that can be abbreviated will be. It’s how we view time, really.”
“Time?”
“Time, Francesco. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, years. Life, if you will.”
She led us down the sidewalk to where the trolley had stopped, and as we boarded the crowded car, I was curious more than frightened. I’d never seen so many women wearing nylons. Next to me, a man in an overcoat was reading a newspaper. At the top of the page, in small print, it read: I am paper. SAVE me. I am ammunition for war. Don’t waste or throw me away. Farther down the page was an advertisement for the new Disney movie, Snow White, but what caught my attention was the headline: “No Sign of Miller’s Plane in English Channel.”
As the trolley started to move, the interior lights flickered occasionally, but no one seemed to notice. Claire held me by the arm and a couple of times she glanced at me, her eyes asking if we were again being taken for a ride. I could only grip the smooth metal bar overhead and set my legs apart for balance as the trolley, picking up speed, seemed to not just hurtle through the city night but through time itself.
III. 1956
15.
I closed the shop as usual at five-thirty. It was one of the first days of the year when a warm afternoon breeze came off the Detroit River. On the sidewalk, men carried their suit coats slung over their shoulders, and women seemed to push through the heat, their skirts shifting languidly as they walked to the DSR stop at the corner. As I locked the front door, I saw his reflection in the glass: he was leaning against a signpost across the street. His dark suit coat was buttoned up, despite the heat, and a folded newspaper was tucked beneath one arm. He had been there at least an hour ago, when I had glanced out my showroom’s plate-glass window.
This was nothing new. A day hardly passed when I didn’t see someone I suspected might be watching me. They often employed the usual props, a newspaper or a book, and they never seemed to be looking directly toward me. They were always men. In the warm months they often wore sunglasses. I could never be certain if their surveillance was real or a figment of my imagination. Still, I had no choice but to play it safe. I had developed different means of escape, all requiring that I do nothing to indicate I knew I was being watched.
Instead of crossing the street to the DSR stop, I walked south until I reached the pawn shop near the end of the block, where the RCA Victor Victrola console radio and phonograph player was still on display. I studied the mahogany cabinet, and then the window’s reflection of the street behind me. The man in the dark suit deposited the newspaper in the trashcan on the curb, but he didn’t move on. I did. Halfway down the next block I went into Tony’s Grill, where I often went for lunch or a beer after work. Tony’s was the first place I had worked after we arrived in Detroit. The bar was crowded with its usual rush-hour patrons. On a shelf behind the bar, Tony had the Tigers game on the radio. During the war he had been stationed in the South Pacific, which he commemorated by wearing Hawaiian shirts every day of the year. Today’s was red, with large green palm fronds. He spotted me and went to the tap and began to draw a glass of Stroh’s. I sat at the far end of the bar, where I had a good view of the front door.
Tony came down and placed a coaster and my beer in front of me, and said, “One-one, eighth inning, Frank.” He moved back up the bar to wait on other customers.
I sipped the foam off the top of my beer. The front door opened and a woman, followed by a stout man, entered the bar. If it had been the man in the dark suit, I would have left a quarter on the bar, turned around, walked down the corridor past the restrooms, and through the kitchen, where Paolo the cook would not have taken much notice as I opened the door and stepped out into the back alley. But the couple came in, and as they approached the bar they were silhouetted against the bright light coming through the plate-glass window—everybody seemed to be getting plate glass installed these days, and Tony and I had recently joked that we ought to go into business together, starting our own firm, Detroit Plate Glass. We were often dreaming up business ideas, and though this one wasn’t very exciting, I suspected that we could probably make a killing.
I drank my beer and listened to the ballgame. Tigers manager Bucky Harris came out to the mound and took the ball from Jim Bunning. They were changing pitchers—Virgil Trucks was warming up in the bullpen. I liked him because he was a veteran and this was clearly his last season, and because fans called him “Fire” Trucks. In America, Tony liked to say, everything changes, and while the Tigers changed pitchers, WJBK’s play-by-play announcer Mel Ott said that they would pause for a commercial. Ott was the new play-by-play announcer that year, replacing Dizzy Trout, who also had a name I liked, and from whom I had learned a great many American colloquialisms. Everything in America changes, even during commercials. I took my time with my beer, thinking about the potential of plate glass.
When my glass was empty, I decided to go to the men’s room before walking back to the DSR stop. I went down the corridor, pushed open the men’s room door, and stepped up to the urinal. It was filled with ice, another sign that summer was coming. I don’t know what the pleasure is in pissing on ice, watching it melt rapidly, but it’s real, and I was concentrating on boring a hole right down to the porcelain when the door behind me swung open on a creaky hinge. I finished up and, turning, found the man in the dark suit standing in front of the door.
I went to the sink, washed my hands, and pulled down on the towel dispenser. For once it worked (another of Tony’s business schemes was to find a company that made a good, reliable towel dispenser and sell it throughout the Midwest—he claimed, with a smile, we would “clean up”), and I dried my hands slowly, hoping the man would step over to the urinal.
But he said, “Hello, Frank.”
I looked at him in the little mirror in the towel dispenser. “I know you?”
He shook his head.
“Didn’t think so.” My hands dry, I faced him. This was something I had learned since arriving in Detroit: if you faced Americans straight on—they would say “confront them”—usually they would back off. If they didn’t, you had a problem.
“Frank, I’d just like to have a few minutes of your time.” He didn’t appear to be backing off. In fact, he seemed pleased with the situation.
“You want to talk?” I said. “In here?”
“Frank Green, your accent’s very good. Sounds almost like you were born here. You’ve always been good at picking up languages, I understand. Let me buy you a beer and we’ll have a little chat.” He held out his hands as
if to show that he wasn’t concealing anything. “Just a talk and then you walk.”
“I walk?”
“Yeah, Frank. It’s a free country. Everyone can walk, they play their cards right.”
I shrugged. “Sure. Okay.”
I followed him back to the bar. He was not a big man, about five-eight, but he was compactly built. His thinning dark hair smelled of Brylcreem, combed straight back. There was nothing threatening, nothing imposing about him, but still the way he walked it looked like he knew exactly where he was going.
We took the empty booth in the back corner. I sat facing the front door, as was my custom. Tony’s wife, Ginger, came over and took our order: beer, and coffee, black.
On the radio it was the top of the ninth, the Red Sox were ahead, 3-2, and Ike Delock was still on the mound at Fenway Park. I was irritated that I couldn’t just listen to the game. “You know my name; I ought to know yours,” I said.
“Fair enough. James Giannopoulos. I’m with the INS.”
“Not the IRS?”
He shook his head. His stare was direct, slightly amused; it said he was willing to play games if necessary, but it was just a waste of time. “INS, Frank. Immigration and Naturalization Services.”
Ginger came to the booth, her bracelets jingling, and as she placed the coaster and beer in front of me, she said, “There you go, dear.” She put the cup of coffee on the table without ever looking at Giannopoulos. “Delock,” she said. “Michigan native. Highland Park. Wish the Tigers had him. You don’t get him out off the mound by the seventh, you’re cooked.”
“’Fraid so,” I said.
Giannopoulos watched her walk back to the bar, but it was not like the way most men watched Ginger. He was waiting for her to get safely out of range. He was about my age, in his mid- to late thirties. Greek complexion, heavy beard, which he probably had to shave at least twice a day. He looked like a man who took little interest in his appearance. His suit, his hair, the thin gray tie, it all seemed designed not to be memorable.
“You’ve been following me,” I said.
“I’ve been anxious to meet you, Frank.” He didn’t look anxious about anything.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, to express my admiration, among other things.”
“Admiration for what?”
“For being a model American citizen.”
“The government sends someone out to congratulate its citizens for good behavior?”
“No. But you’re an unusual case.” He picked up his cup. The coffee was lousy at Tony’s. I’d been telling Tony and Ginger for years they should do something about it. After James Giannopoulos sipped his coffee, I expected to see some sign of dissatisfaction, perhaps even revulsion, but there was nothing as he put the cup back in its saucer. “You are an extremely unusual case, Frank. Very impressive.”
“That so?”
“Your file is that thick.” He held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Please don’t say, ‘What file?’”
“Then perhaps we could just sit here and listen to the ballgame.”
There was the faintest smile. “That would be nice.” He seemed sincere, but with regret he added, “Though it wouldn’t be in your best interests.”
I drank some beer, deciding that it might be wise to remain silent, at least until I had a clearer notion of what he was up to, what he was after.
“You written to Adino Agostino lately?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “He sends you postcards from Naples. And sometimes envelopes stuffed with newspaper clippings about Italian soccer. He doesn’t write much, of course. I suppose it’s his daughter’s hand. She must be old enough to learn how to write, so he dictates something to her, just a note about the weather, the family. That was a terrible thing they did to him up there at Camp Au Train. I understand he was really a gifted player. Of course, soccer here in the United States—nobody understands this sport. It’s all baseball and football. Games where you can use your hands.” He took another sip of his coffee. “It’s all in the file, Frank. And what makes it truly extraordinary is it’s still open—you’re still out there, walking around.”
“I thought you said it was a free country, everybody walks.”
“Most files have been closed, Frank. They’ve been captured, they’ve turned themselves in, or they’re dead. A few managed to get home, back to wherever they came from. You’re one of the few still living here, a free man. You are to be congratulated.” He looked over his shoulder a moment, though there was no chance that someone was within hearing range. “But it won’t last much longer, Frank. It’s for your own good, really.”
I finished my beer. “What is?”
He looked disappointed but not surprised. “All right. If I were in your position I’d react the same way. You don’t know who I am, where I’m really coming from. You only got this far because you’re careful. Have another beer, and I’ll set the record straight.” He turned and raised his hand to get Ginger’s attention.
After a fresh beer and a second cup of coffee were delivered to the table, Giannopoulos said, “When you and Claire—Chiara, a very pretty name—first arrived here, you got in touch with June Stillman, who taught at what was then called Wayne University. Not much remains the same in America, Frank. This year they changed the name to Wayne State. We’ve never been sure if Professor Stillman knew you were coming, if you had communicated your intentions before getting out of the camp in Au Train, or if it was just part of your good fortune. No matter. She took you in and introduced you to her friends, people at the university, people who were pacifists or members of the party. They helped you because otherwise they could only sit around and theorize. They could actually do something about you. You became like their pets. If they could save you, they could feel a lot better about themselves. They found you jobs, and soon you were able to get your own apartment. And then they got you in touch with people who could provide you with a new identity, because you understood that things don’t remain the same here, and that your survival depends on it. So you became Frank and Claire Green. You bought documents that look as genuine as mine. Believe me, you’re lucky you found a girl like Claire. As the songs say, it must be love. By the time the war was over, you were model citizens. You went from working in the kitchen here to that shop down the street, which you now own. Claire worked in several offices as a secretary. She got pregnant—the first time in ’49, but she lost it. The second time, in ’51, but again there were complications. She was in the hospital for a week. Now it’s five years down the road and still no kids. During all this you drifted away from those commies who helped you at first. It’s just getting too hot for them in this country, thanks to people like Joe McCarthy. But you remained loyal to Stillman. When she took ill, you visited her regularly. I had a cousin who had to go into one of those iron lungs, and I know it’s a blessing when they finally die.”
Giannopoulos paused and sipped his coffee. For a moment I thought he was through, but then he said, “Two years ago you returned to Italy. You and Claire took a train to New York and a steamship across the Atlantic. Your mother had died. You didn’t go home when your father died in ’46, but this time it was your mother. And your sister was getting married. So you stayed nearly four months, and we thought that you had decided not to come back. You liked being Francesco Verdi again, and Chiara Frangiapani came to like it in postwar Italy. My guess is you considered going into the family business, which would have been fine by us: good luck and we close your file. But you come back. And you bring some money—I suppose you let your sister and brother-in-law buy you out of your share of the store, the house, and the olive grove over there—and you have enough, twenty-five thousand dollars, to buy that shop down the street. Business is getting better all the time. You wear a nice suit, and those Italian shoes are very sharp. They’re easier to afford over here, anyway. You even have an assistant. And Claire, she doesn’t work as a secretary anymore, though a couple of times a week she comes downtow
n and does the bookkeeping for you. You run your shop, you pay your taxes. The crying shame of it is we don’t have more citizens like Frank and Claire Green.”
The bar had emptied out and Sinatra was playing on the radio. I realized I had no idea who had won the ballgame, though I suspected it was the Red Sox.
“So, Mr. Giannopoulos,” I asked, “what do you want?”
“I want to help you.”
“From what you say, it sounds like I don’t need any.”
“I wish that were so.” Giannopoulos sipped his coffee. “We’ve learned something about Vogel. We’ve learned that he’s after you, Frank.”
“Vogel.” I had picked up my glass, but put it down.
Giannopoulos smiled, but only just. “He’s still in America, Frank. They have men planted here who have been given orders to find the rest of you. I have to tell you that we even have suspicions about some of the men working in our own agency. Between the communists and the remains of the Nazi Party, you don’t know who’s who in this country anymore.”
“Maybe you’re one of them?”
“You better hope not. If I were you—well, you’re just going to have to decide who to trust. I realize that up to now you have acknowledged none of what I’ve been saying. You’ve just listened, because you’re smart. But you have to ask yourself this: if I wasn’t here to help you, why would I bother to convince you that I know so much about you?” Giannopoulos waited, and when I said nothing, he showed the slightest disappointment. “All these years, Frank, you’ve been looking over your shoulder. Every day. It’s got to wear you down—both you and Claire. But you know that this will never go away because they never forget. At Camp Au Train, Vogel had you tried, first on charges of treason; but then, again, after you ran, he also tried you for murder of a member of the Nazi Party. Now I’m not here to suggest that you’re the one who actually killed Otto Werner. It’s very possible that it was that Russian, Dimitri Sabaneyev. In fact, I’m inclined to think that that’s the case. But it really doesn’t matter. The point is you’re on their books, you’re still out here, and Vogel has an obligation. Even after all these years, with their little Führer dead and gone, men like Vogel are more devoted and loyal than ever. If they weren’t Nazis, what would they be? They don’t know how to be anything else.”