“Fraulein Haussmann?” the Gestapo agent called out.
Eva froze and turned back toward him, trying not to seem intimidated. Lisl Haussmann, the pseudonym she had chosen, was the name of a high school teacher in Venice who had been her mentor. It had a comfortable familiarity and recalled pleasant times which she hoped would be reflected in her demeanor.
“Is that one N or two?” the Gestapo agent asked.
“Two,” Eva replied, calmly.
“I just wanted to be sure I had it right.” His sly smile left no doubt he’d been testing her.
As the Gestapo agent turned his attention to the next traveler, Eva hurried through the door that led outside to the platform. Another line of barricades funneled passengers to a door in the middle coach of the train through which everyone boarded; and where the other Gestapo agent was checking documents for the Imperial Eagle stamp to make certain no one had managed to skirt the security check inside. The locomotive was building up steam for departure when Eva joined the queue.
Inside, Jake had purchased his ticket and was at the security desk. The Gestapo agent reviewed his papers and stamped his passport. “Thank you Herr Dietrich.” Like Eva, Jake had chosen a familiar name as a pseudonym, that of Erich Dietrich, a childhood friend with a quirky sense of humor who made him laugh. He picked up his suitcase, and walked away, suppressing a sigh of relief. They had made it. By morning, he and Eva would be in Venice. Dare he even allow himself to think it?! All he had to do was cross the station, go through the door to the platform, and board the train.
Major Steig may not have spotted Eva, but he had an immediate flicker of recognition when Jake stepped to the ticket window, moments ago. The major’s eyes had darted from the fugitive alert to Jake’s face several times. The three-year-old photo, now a poor match for Jake’s hardened countenance and the cap that kept his face in shadow, made it hard for Steig to be certain; but he had nothing to lose; and, now, having deployed his SS henchmen, he moved swiftly from the station master’s office in pursuit of his prey. “Dr. Epstein?” he called out. “Dr. Jacob Epstein?”
“Yes?” Jake said, glancing back over his shoulder. It was instinct, pure reflex, an unthinking reaction from a lifetime of conditioning as Max had warned. He gasped at the sight of an SS major striding toward him in his black greatcoat and silver death’s head gleaming atop his cap, then dropped his suitcase and ran.
“Halt!” Steig shouted, pulling his sidearm from its holster. “Stop him! Stop him!”
Three uniformed SS men emerged from concealment in pursuit. Despite his desperation, Jake had the presence of mind to run toward an exit opposite the one that led outside to the platform and waiting train, leading them away from Eva.
“Halt!” Steig shouted again, firing several shots overhead as Jake sprinted toward the door. The transom shattered, showering him with glass as another SS man burst through it from outside blocking his way. Jake froze and raised his hands. The SS man drove the butt of his rifle into his stomach, sending him to the floor, then raised it, preparing to deliver another blow to his skull.
“No! I want him alive!” Steig shouted. “He has information that—” The piercing shriek of the train whistle interrupted him. “The train! Stop the train and search for this woman!” he shouted, waving the alert with Eva’s picture; but by the time the Major and several of the SS men had run through the station and onto the platform, the train had already departed and was a distance down the tracks, gaining speed.
It didn’t matter if Dr. Eva Sarah Rosenberg was on the train or not, the major thought as he watched the light from the last car receding in the darkness. He had no doubt he’d get her, eventually. It was the Kleists’ blood that Steig smelled, now. They were the prize. And Dr. Jacob Israel Epstein was the key to winning it. The major went back into the station, picked up Jake’s suitcase, and joined the SS men who were holding him. “I believe this is yours, Doctor. Perhaps you’d like to scrub-up before we question you. I’m a stickler for hygiene when it comes to exploratory surgery.”
Jake was taken to an interrogation chamber in the basement of the SS Station in Garmisch. The major put the suitcase on a table in the dank, stone cavern, and began rifling the contents. “Mein Kampf?!” he exclaimed, coming upon the book amidst the clothing he’d disrupted. He made the obvious assumption, and flipped the pages without really looking at them or, as Jake feared, noticing the dust jacket didn’t match. Steig turned it over, shook it several times, then threw it back into the suitcase. “Judging by your reading matter, Epstein, there may be hope for you yet,” he said facetiously, his breath visible in the cold air. At the jerk of the major’s head, one of the SS men closed the suitcase, opened the door to an anteroom, and tossed it atop other pieces of luggage and duffel bags piled on the floor.
Jake spent the night in the freezing chamber being threatened and beaten by the major and his SS thugs. He’d been relieved that Steig hadn’t noticed the KK monogram on the suitcase and refused to even recognize the name Kleist let alone implicate them as enablers of his escape attempt. He knew the major needed his signed testimony to accuse citizens as prominent as the Kleists of harboring Jews; and the sheer pleasure of frustrating him reinforced his resolve not to cooperate. By the time the sun was rising over Zugspitze, his face bloodied, his body aching, Jake had taken all the punishment they had dished out with courage and silent dignity.
Steig looked bleary-eyed and exasperated. He drained a mug of cold coffee, then put a sheet of paper and a pen on the table in front of Jake. “Simply write that the Kleist family helped you to avoid being arrested by the SS. Sign it. And you’re a free man.”
Jake glared at him with contempt. “Sure…”
“You hear what I said? A free man!” Steig screeched; then, in a friendlier tone, said, “Your exemption will be restored. You will be able to practice medicine; and you will be free to travel anywhere you wish.”
“I give you the Kleists’ heads, and you let me keep mine?” Jake said in mocking paraphrase. “Is that it?”
Steig nodded. “Precisely. You have my word as an officer and a gentleman.”
“Four Germans for one Jew? Our stock is on the rise.” Jake swept the paper and pen onto the floor, then locked his eyes onto Steig’s and said, “Go to hell!”
Steig backhanded him across the face, knocking him from the chair. Jake moaned in pain and tried to get to his feet. One of the SS thugs stomped a heel into his back, then pulled his sidearm and pressed the muzzle against Jake’s head.
“No,” Steig said, seething at having failed to break him. “Take him to Munich with the others. The Reichsführer has uses for doctors. Even Jewish ones.”
Jake was taken from the interrogation chamber and loaded into the rear of a canvas-backed military truck with a group of local residents who had been identified as Jews and arrested. The vehicle had just started to pull away when an SS guard shouted after it. The truck lurched to a stop and backed up a short distance. A moment later, a valise came sailing over the tailgate into the rear of the truck, landing amidst the huddled prisoners. It was followed by a suitcase, and then another and another; several duffel bags came next, then more suitcases. Jake’s Steinbach was one of them.
Six hours later, literally freezing to death, they arrived at the main deportation center in Munich which was adjacent to the rail yards on the city’s perimeter. Lugging their suitcases, the prisoners were herded into a corral with hundreds of other Jewish deportees who had been given brushes and buckets of white paint, and were writing personal data on their luggage.
“Name, year of birth, and the prisoner reference number and group number that you were assigned when you got here,” the SS man kept repeating as if to children. “In case you’ve forgotten, this is group number twelve. You people are always getting your bags mixed up. It will be much easier to identify them later if you do as I instruct. Name, year of birth, and your prisoner reference number and group number that…”
“My valise has a lu
ggage tag,” one of the prisoners said. “May I omit the information that—”
“No!” the SS guard shouted, striking him with his truncheon. “Tags get ripped off. Paint is forever. No questions. Do as instructed!”
Though it pained Jake to deface such a fine piece of luggage, he wisely complied. When finished, he and the others were herded into a freight car by SS men who used truncheons to pummel resisters and stragglers and those who went in search of a child or loved one from whom they had become separated. The door rolled shut with the chilling screech of steel on steel and the harsh clank of wrought iron hasps, plunging the interior of the freight car and its human cargo into darkness. Some were moaning in pain. Many were weeping. Others were shouting and pounding on the wooden sidewalls in protest. They were packed-in so tightly there was barely enough room for everyone to stand, let alone breathe. Perhaps, Jake thought, their combined body heat would keep them from freezing to death en route to their destination.
The train lurched forward with several sharp jerks, then started to roll, heading out of the yard on rails that glistened from constant use. Every train departing the Munich freight yards on that spur had the same destination. Indeed this one—and all others that had preceded it, and all those that would follow—went to one place and one place only, making no stops in its 500 kilometer journey through Czechoslovakia to the town of Oswiecim in southeastern Poland and a concentration camp of the same name that in German was called Auschwitz.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“For the love of Jesus!” Steinbach exclaimed after Tannen and Stacey briefed him on Adam’s suspicions and the threat they posed. “You two really are the Bad News Bears, aren’t you? It’s the only time you ever come over here.”
Stacey shrugged and shot a helpless look to Tannen.
Tannen splayed his hands.
The smell of leather and machined brass hung in the silence, intensified by samples of the new line that were neatly stacked in every corner. Steinbach had papered the office with Zach Bolden’s black-and-white photo blow-ups of him and Jake. The powerful images with their proudly displayed Auschwitz tattoos—Two old Jews sticking it to the Nazis! as Steinbach had put it—looked down, mockingly, from every wall.
“So now what?!” Steinbach went on, still charged-up. “Instead of a story about Holocaust survivors and a vintage Steinbach, it’s going to be about a Nazi war criminal?! This is a fucking disaster!”
“You said you wanted controversy, Sol…”
“Well, I’m getting more than I bargained for!”
“Maybe we can spin it so Steinbach and Co. get the credit for unmasking him,” Tannen offered unconvincingly, “…if it turns out that’s the case.”
“I mean, like…” Stacey ventured with an uncertain pause, “…like there’s no way The Times’ll run the story without resolving this first, right?”
Tannen grunted in the affirmative.
“That’s the upside?!” Steinbach challenged. “We sure as hell can’t postpone the launch til then! I’ve got a factory going twenty-four/seven. A warehouse busting with inventory. Sales reps priming the pump. Retailers screaming for merchandise! I’ve got to start selling luggage or I’m screwed.”
“Then start selling,” Tannen counseled, his voice reclaiming its authority. “Get ahead of the story. Either way, it’ll minimize negative impact and boost sales.”
“Negative impact? This is a catastrophe!” Steinbach roared, gesturing to the photo blowups that surrounded them. “How the hell can I run these ads?!”
“Stay the course, Sol,” Tannen said, forcefully. “Not much else you can do until The Times sorts it out.”
“Are you nuts?” Steinbach erupted. “I’m not leaving it to them. No fucking way!”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know,” Steinbach replied, bristling. “I need a ride.” He sprung to his feet and strode toward the private bathroom where he showered and changed after biking to work each morning. He paused and, loosening his tie, locked his eyes onto Stacey’s. “You’ve saved my ass more than once, kid. I’ll be in here changing. When I come out, I’m expecting you to knock my socks off.”
“Knock my socks off?” Stacey mouthed, stifling a giggle as Steinbach retreated into the bathroom. “Do people still say that?”
“My father does,” Tannen replied with a little smile. “It’s an elder thing.”
Stacey’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “So, as the elder statesman on this team, any bright ideas?”
“Yeah. You’re going to knock his socks off.”
Stacey rolled her eyes. “Way I see it, we’re at the tipping point, here,” she said reflecting on a book she’d read recently. She crouched to one of the sample suitcases and opened the latches, then snapped them closed, then did it again and again—snap-click, snap-click, snap-click, her mind racing in search of an answer. “By the way, the tipping point is that moment when all factors and forces in a given situation are at critical mass and everything is about to change simultaneously.”
Tannen’s eyes twinkled with insight. “The shit’s about to hit the fan.”
Stacey groaned. “Well, that is another way of putting it.” She was still snapping latches when Steinbach reappeared in his yellow-and-black cycling outfit and no-heel shoes. He came toward her in an awkward gait and arched his brows expectantly.
“Go back to the experts,” Stacey said, smartly, before he could ask. “The Wiesenthal Center. Nobody knows more about war criminals, right? If anybody can sort this out, it’s—”
“You’re right,” Steinbach growled. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Not much point in knocking your own socks off.”
Steinbach laughed. “What was that gal’s name?”
“Rother. Ellen Rother,” Tannen replied.
“Right. Set a meeting, ASAP.” Steinbach went to his Giro d’Italia leaning against the wall and rolled it toward the door, setting its titanium derailleur to clicking. “Oh…” he said, glancing back at Stacey, “…in case you’re wondering, your boyfriend isn’t invited.” He rolled the bike into the corridor, leaving Stacey and Tannen in the office, mouths agape.
“Hell of a character, isn’t he?” Tannen prompted.
“A comic book character,” Stacey replied with an appreciative chuckle. “Kind of like Clark Kent going into the phone both and coming out as Superman.”
Tannen’s brow furrowed . “We could use the man of steel about now.”
“You thinking it’s time we get Gunther into it?”
Tannen winced. “Naw, it’s still too…too dicey. Besides, he won’t be back til next week. We can’t wait that long.” He plucked his cell phone from its holster. “I better get this thing set up.”
“I’ve got a call to make too,” Stacey said with trepidation, slipping her Blackberry from her handbag.
Tannen smiled, knowingly. “Good luck.”
“You think it’s the right move? Calling him…”
Tannen waggled a hand. “It’s always better when Celine just comes up behind my chair and hugs me. Doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t have to. Know what I mean?”
“A little tenderness…”
Tannen nodded.
Stacey thanked him with a smile and put the Blackberry away.
Tannen set-up the meeting with Ellen Rother for the following morning, then he and Stacey headed back to the office. The city was steeped in sweltering humidity which had a way of intensifying the pressure. Stacey focused on developing ads that would feature other owners of vintage Steinbachs. Tannen worked on contingency plans and damage control in case the ads featuring Jake Epstein had to be pulled, and on scheduling photo shoots with Zach Bolden. When they finally called it a night, Tannen headed to the driving range at Chelsea Piers. It was a short walk from his West Village condo in one of the austere, glass boxes that had been built recently along the Hudson. Stacey headed south on Park Avenue, calling Adam’s editor at The Times en route.
“Paul? Yeah, hi, it
’s Stacey. Any chance he’s still there? Oh, okay,” she sighed, disappointed. “I was going to have you call down a pass so I could surprise him. Yeah, probably is. Thanks.” She pocketed the Blackberry and headed into Grand Central, taking the shuttle to Times Square where she caught the subway that ran up the west side from the Battery to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
Along with its swirling litter, thundering racket, and nauseating olfactory offenses, for $2.25, the Metropolitan Transit Authority also provided its subway riders with a cellular dead zone. Nary a catchy personal ringtone had ever been heard in these tunnels cut through the bedrock from which skyscrapers soared. Indeed, New Yorkers were free to think, reflect, zone-out, read a book, blast their iPods, decide whether to cook or get takeout, replay the day’s events, sleep, or as Stacey Dutton was doing now, indulge in self recrimination.
In unnervingly close, if not intimate, contact with dozens of strangers, she was holding onto a pole with one hand, and a paperback of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers—a quirky analysis of why some people succeed—with the other. The words became a blur as her mind kept replaying her spat with Adam. Stacey knew she was wrong, knew she had unjustly accused him of something unethical, something she believed him incapable of doing. Heartened by Tannen’s advice, she was anxious to apologize and make amends. When the No. 1 train pulled into the 79th Street station, she bolted from the car and sprinted up the stairs, making a beeline for the Crunch Gym on 83rd and Amsterdam. She often took this circuitous route to her apartment, pressing her nose to the glass if Adam was there, making him laugh; but he wasn’t on one of the window-facing treadmills he favored. The news crawl on the ubiquitous TV monitors read: HANNAH MONTANA GETS NAKED. SEXY PICS FOUND ON MILEY’S IPHONE. DAD BILLY RAY FAULTED OVER VANITY FAIR PHOTO SPREAD.
The German Suitcase Page 17