The high-pitched pinging of flatware on crystal silenced the crowd, calling attention to Mark Gunther who was standing at a podium flanked by Sol Steinbach and Dr. Jacob Epstein. Gunther Global’s CEO always managed to project quiet confidence born of success in the cutthroat competition for advertising accounts and the grueling miles of marathons. However, as of late, his confidence had been shaken by the possibility that his company and client would be irreparably damaged by the blunder of featuring a Nazi war criminal in a major campaign. Now, that his fears had been assuaged, Gunther spoke with emotion and eloquence about the themes of the campaign, going on to introduce Jake and Sol as survivors of the most horrific and momentous period in modern history. The room filled with thunderous applause as the three men left the podium and began working the crowd.
Gunther joined a group of partygoers that included his wife Grace, Ellen Rother, Tannen and his companion, Celine. “I don’t know how you did it,” Gunther said in an aside to Tannen. “But I’d no doubt you and Stace would pull it off.”
“You mean me and that ‘quirky little genius of mine’ who cooked up the Steinbach campaign?” Tannen prompted, echoing the sarcastic wisecrack Gunther had made after his flight from Paris.
Gunther laughed, good naturedly. “Looks like she knows how to work a room, too,” he said, eyeing Stacey who was chatting with Hannah Epstein and Steinbach’s wife, Bernice, both wearing chic summer dresses. “She’s definitely corner office material. Wouldn’t surprise me if she ended up in yours one of these days.”
“Mais oui!” Celine exclaimed, with a sly glance to Tannen. “By then, Bart will be occupying yours! Non?”
“Non,” Tannen replied with a laugh. “By then Mark will have sold out to S&S and Stacey will be their creative director,” he went on, referring to Saatchi & Saatchi, the highly creative British agency with offices in eighty countries.
Like her colleagues, Stacey was aglow with the sense of accomplishment and validation creative people experience when their ideas become reality. “This must be a special moment for you,” Hannah Epstein prompted, seeing the look on her face.
“And for your husband,” Stacey replied. You have no idea just how special, she thought, concealing the relief she felt at having it all come out right in the end. Indeed, neither Hannah, Jake nor their son Dan knew of Adam’s suspicion and the personal destruction it had threatened; nor of how Stacey had been caught in the middle; torn between her innate affection for Jake, her professional loyalty to her client and employer, and her personal commitment to Adam and his career; but all that had been put to rest. Now, she was gazing like a lovesick teenager at Jake, his white mane shimmering in the light as he held court, nearby, in a circle of admiring partygoers. “So, did he capture your heart the first time you saw him?” Stacey asked Hannah, unabashedly. “I mean, the morning he walked into our conference room…God, mine just melted on the spot.”
Hannah smiled in reflection. “Oh yes…mine still skips a beat when he enters a room. It’s always been that way for me with Jake. There’s something about his voice, too. A certain…timbre. I hear it all the time.”
“I knew Sol was ‘the one’ the day I saw him trying to talk Bergdorf’s into carrying his line,” Bernice offered in her smoker’s baritone. “My father was the luggage buyer, and I was working in the stockroom on summer vacation.” She winked, mischievously. “Sol spent half the summer ‘working’ in there too.”
Stacey laughed, then emitted a wistful sigh, still gazing at Jake. Refined, educated, culturally engaged, a kind and gentle man, he was all she had ever hoped for in a father figure. The complete opposite of her own, and the men in her family, who were crusty, hard-driving, Westerners. Emotionally distant, they drove pick-ups with crew cabs and winches, and names like Dakota, Frontier, Ridgeline and Sierra, and spent their spare time clearing brush and mending fences in emulation of their favorite ex-Presidents.
“Your husband’s a truly special man, isn’t he?” Stacey went on. “I mean, the more I learn about him the more amazing he becomes.”
Hannah broke into a knowing smile. “Sie sind lustern,” she said, feigning she was jealous. “Sie sind lustern nach meinem Mann, junge Dame.”
Stacey looked baffled.
Bernice was cackling with delight. “She said, you’re lusting after my husband, young lady.”
“Ooops!” Stacey said with an impish grin. “What can I say? He’s a hunk, a hottie, a hottie and a half.”
The three women broke into laughter and, collecting Sol Steinbach en route, drifted toward Jake’s group that included Dan Epstein and Adam, who had just mentioned the interview.
“Of course,” Jake said. “I’ve been looking forward to it. Anytime this week is fine. Dan?”
His son palmed his Blackberry, checked his schedule and said, “Friday at ten would work. Foundation HQ.”
“What’s Friday at ten?” Stacey asked as she and Hannah and the Steinbachs joined them.
“I’m interviewing Dr. Epstein,” Adam replied, a broad smile dimpling his signature two-day growth.
“Great,” Stacey said, plucking a flute of prosecco from a passing tray. “Here’s to Dr. Epstein!” She raised her glass and clinked it to his. “I was just telling Mrs. Epstein how we keep finding out he’s even more amazing than we thought.”
“I’ve been telling her that for sixty years!” Jake cracked, eliciting laughter from the group.
“No, seriously,” Stacey went on. “We didn’t know you’d been to hell and back twice. I mean—”
“Twice?” Jake interrupted with a devilish twinkle, his accent thickening when he joked. “I’ve only been married once!”
“I heard that Jake Epstein,” Hannah joked with a fetching pout.
“You’ve gotten me in trouble with the boss, young lady,” Jake teased. “Now, what could you have possibly learned that would make you say that?”
Stacey broke into a chastened smile. “Well, for starters, I learned that you’re not only a survivor of Auschwitz but also Dachau.”
“Yeah,” Steinbach chimed-in. “I’d no idea you were there. All the anti-Nazis in Leipzig who weren’t Jews ended up in that place.”
Jake nodded, somberly. “Yes, yes there were many political prisoners at Dachau. By the time I arrived the Nazis had lost their obsession for record-keeping and were frantically destroying them. It’s a wonder anyone knows anything about who was where. Europe had become lost in the fog of war as someone once said.”
“Those snapshots of ID numbers,” Stacey went on, energized by Jake’s reminiscence. “They were taken to make a record of them as Ellen thought. Weren’t they?”
Jake nodded smartly. “My friend, Max, took them. I believe I mentioned him.”
“Yes, you did. Max Kleist, right? You sponsored his family for the Yad Vashem award. Another one of those amazing things we learned about you!”
Jake smiled self-consciously and nodded again.
“God, it’s so incredible,” Stacey gushed, unable to contain her enthusiasm. “I mean, that he was at Dachau when you were transferred.”
“Max wasn’t just there, he was on the ramp!” Jake exclaimed, getting caught up in Stacey’s fervor. “I wouldn’t be here now, if he wasn’t!” He paused for a moment, trying to recall something, then nodded. “If my memory serves me…” he said, his voice taking on a more hushed timbre, “…it was about a week later that Max took the snapshots. A group of us had gathered in the Revier…that’s what we called the prison hospital. Max came with his camera and…and one by one he had us put our arm on the table and photographed the tattoo.”
Adam’s mind was racing. Hearing Jake tell the story made the puzzling detail that had first caught his eye sparkle with renewed clarity. Regardless of who took the snapshots or why they were taken, he knew, now, beyond any doubt, that the forearm in the snapshot with number A198841 tattooed on it was Jake Epstein’s, not an imposter’s. He also knew that Jake Epstein, the one right in front of him, had the exact same
number tattooed on his arm—but in different handwriting. This wasn’t news. It had been identified, investigated and dismissed. Indeed, Maximilian Kleist M.D. Captain, Waffen-SS, the man Adam suspected of being a Nazi war criminal, impersonating the real Jake Epstein, had died long ago. What’s more, he had taken the snapshot—the one that had raised Adam’s suspicions—to insure that Jake, among others, didn’t just vanish without a trace. Like Ellen, Stacey, Tannen, Steinbach and the Gunthers, Adam had accepted the handwriting enigma as one of the many unfathomable mysteries that were part of the fog of war as Jake had just said; but the fog had suddenly lifted, and the glaring incongruity was still there. How could he ignore it? How could he, in good conscience, write Jake’s story without asking him about it? “Excuse me, Dr. Epstein,” Adam said in a casual tone. “This could wait til Friday; but I was struck by something you just said. Would you mind talking about it, now?”
“Yes, he would,” Dan Epstein replied. “My father’s already answered enough questions for one day.”
Jake sighed, dismissing Dan with a wave of his hand, and nodded to Adam. “Please…”
“Great,” Adam said, stealing an anxious glance at Dan as he slipped a hand into his pocket and turned on his recorder; then, he took a deep breath and looked into the old fellow’s kindly face. “I know it’s been a long time, Dr. Epstein, but over the years, did you ever notice the numbers on your arm are different than the ones in the snapshot taken at Dachau?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
After being escorted by the SS men to the Revier, Jake wasted no time treating the searing bruises and welts Radek had inflicted on Hannah. She spent the night in his quarters soothed by his comforting words and caring embrace. Within weeks, she had healed physically and, despite the shattering emotional trauma, was well on her way to regaining her mental toughness. By the last week of March, she had resumed treating typhus victims. Jake was, now, among them. He had grown weaker and could no longer deny he had contracted it. Though not always able to make it through an entire shift, he continued caring for other victims free from the concern of catching it.
As Major Bruckmann had advised, Max thought about the things that matter in life, like reuniting with Eva, to cope with his tours on the ramp. The influx of prisoners from Eastern Block camps was overwhelming, fueling the typhus epidemic. As Hannah had feared, not only weren’t antibiotics available for prisoners, they weren’t available for SS officers either. The prescriptions Max and Kruger had left in their own names at the pharmacy hadn’t been filled, and never would be. Penicillin was so scarce in Germany, that only the Führer, after being wounded in an assassination attempt in 1944, had been treated with it. Even Major Bruckmann didn’t have a source. Nor were other SS doctors, nurses and pharmacists willing to share, or sell, what Max suspected, they had pilfered for personal use.
The SS hospital was running out of basic medical supplies as well. Warehouses were under constant Allied bombardment along with roadways and rail spurs. Expected shipments never arrived; and despite its proximity to the Ruhr Valley and its vaunted mining industry, KZ-Dachau didn’t even have coal for heating or cremating the dead.
Everyone had sensed the war was lost. Now, everyone knew it. American troops were across the Rhine, within two hundred miles of Berlin, and sweeping across Bavaria toward Munich and Dachau. Himmler had become obsessed with preventing its prisoners from being liberated. Nothing else mattered, now. Even Radek’s bizarre death, which Kruger feared would be rigorously investigated by Major Steig, had been ignored.
On Wednesday, March 27th, Max was dressing for yet another tour on the ramp when Major Bruckmann stopped by his quarters.
“I’m afraid things are going to get worse before they get better,” the impeccably groomed major said. “I’ll be leaving before the week is out. I wanted to wish you luck.”
“Thank you, Sir. I wish you the same.”
“I also wanted to give you this,” Bruckmann went on, handing Max an envelope.
On opening it, Max’s eyes widened in disbelief at the glass vial it contained. “Penicillin?”
Bruckmann nodded. “While packing, I recalled you’d been in search of antibiotics for a friend in the Revier.”
“Yes, Sir. My best friend. Jacob Epstein. He’s a doctor. An exceptional one. I tried everything short of gunpoint. Where’d you get it?”
Bruckmann’s eyes danced with mischief behind his metal-framed lenses. “From Lieutenant Radek.”
Max looked astonished. “Radek?”
“The one and only. After his ‘accident’, Colonel Weiter assigned me to notify his family, and arrange for his remains and personal effects to be sent home. I came across it while going through his quarters,” Bruckmann explained. “It seems he’d been requisitioning medicines and supplies for patients and keeping them for himself. Everything from antibiotics and disinfectants like Argyrol and mercurochrome to gauze pads and adhesive tape. It was quite a cache.”
“Selling them on the black market, wasn’t he?”
Bruckmann smiled, knowingly. “I saw no need to include them with his underwear and socks. I’m afraid it’s only one vial. As you know, even several doses are often insufficient when it comes to typhus.”
“Better than nothing, Sir.” Max wanted to go to the Revier and give Jake the injection, immediately; but had barely enough time to get to the ramp. Before leaving, he took a case that contained a syringe from his physician’s bag, and slipped it into a pocket of his greatcoat.
That evening, after finishing his tour, Max went directly to the Revier. Jake, Hannah, Dr. Cohen and some staff members were gathered in the meeting room; but Cohen wasn’t chairing a briefing, he was holding a Seder. It was Passover. Some Jewish prisoners had squirreled-away pieces of moldy bread from their rations. Moistened with water, rolled into thin sheets and dried, they had been reconstituted into makeshift matzos that, along with a flickering candle, were in the center of the table.
“Well, we’re only short six ingredients,” Cohen said, with a facetious chuckle, referring to the seven symbolic foods required at a Seder, matzo being one.
“I beg to differ,” Jake said. “By my count, we’re short only three.” Everyone looked puzzled.
“We have matzo and?” Cohen prompted.
“…the karpas, chazaret and maror,” Jake replied, enumerating the bitter-tasting herbs eaten with the matzo as a reminder of the hardships the Hebrews suffered while enslaved by the Egyptians.
Now, everyone looked really puzzled. Everyone except Hannah who, with an amused smile, said, “You pilfered them from the kitchen, didn’t you Jake?”
“No need,” he replied with a sly grin. “This place is bitter enough to make up for all three.”
After the Seder, Hannah began her rounds of the wards, and Max accompanied Jake to his quarters, handing him the envelope the instant the door closed. “A little something for Passover.”
“The six missing ingredients?” Jake quipped, dropping onto his bunk exhausted.
“Not exactly,” Max replied with a laugh. “Moldy matzos may not a happy Passover make, but green mold does have its uses.”
Jake’s eyes widened at Max’s reference to the process that produces antibiotics. “Penicillin?”
Max nodded, savoring the moment.
“Where’d you get it?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Jake shrugged. “It’ll be wasted on me, anyway,” he said, his eyes brightening despite his gloomy prognosis. “But it might not be too late for Hannah.”
Max looked shocked. “Hannah? Hannah has typhus?”
Jake nodded. “Early stages. Abdominal pain, dull rash, fever. Her reward for taking care of me. I tried to stop her: treated her poorly, denied my feelings, talked about Eva incessantly. Didn’t do a bit of good.”
“Of course not. She’s in love with you, Jake. She told me. I assured her you felt the same way.”
“I do. I care for her deeply…with all my heart.” He
emitted a disconsolate sigh. “And I killed her.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not the only one with typhus around here,” Max said, placing a palm on Jake’s forehead. “My God, you’re burning up.”
Jake nodded. “I told you, I’m finished.”
“No you’re not.” Max removed the syringe he’d brought with him from its case, sterilized it with alcohol, and began assembling it. “Hannah has time. The Americans have penicillin. They’ll be here soon. We’ll save her. I promise. And this…” He took the vial from the envelope. “…is going to save you. And I won’t take no for an answer.” Before Jake could protest, Max swabbed his bicep and the vial’s seal with alcohol, then punctured the latter with the needle, withdrawing the plunger, slowly. The glass cylinder filled with white liquid. He pinched Jake’s pasty flesh between his fingers, popped the needle into it, and depressed the plunger. “Happy Passover!”
Later, that evening Max and Kruger were in the Officer’s Club celebrating the unexpected turn of events. A depressive pall seemed to hang over the place, which was half empty and had lost its joie de vivre. Max was lighting a cigarette when his eyes darted to the entrance. He froze, holding the burning match.
“What is it?” Kruger asked, seeing his reaction.
“My favorite attack dog just walked in.” The flame reached Max’s fingers making him toss the match aside.
“Steig?”
Max nodded. “And several mongrels from his pack,” he added as the Major strode toward their table. “Looks like you were right, Otto.”
“Captain Maximilian Kleist,” Steig intoned, his greatcoat swirling about him cape-like as he removed it, knowing someone in his entourage would keep it from falling to the floor. “What a pleasant surprise.”
The German Suitcase Page 25