Pressure Drop

by Peter Abrahams

  She rubbed his shoulders.

  “Unlike von Trautschke,” Matthias said.

  “Who was saved by death,” Mrs. Goldschmidt said.

  Her husband sighed. “Except that—”

  “Who was saved by death,” Mrs. Goldschmidt repeated, a little louder.

  Mr. Goldschmidt put his hand on hers, squeezed. “Let us be fair to Felix, Hilda. I think that this lady and gentleman want to continue his work, don’t you see?”

  “Except what, Mr. Goldschmidt?” Matthias said.

  He looked back at his wife; her face was impassive. “Except that Felix could not find von Trautschke’s grave,” said Mr. Goldschmidt. “All he could find was the death certificate. He tried everything, official channels, unofficial. He even located von Trautschke’s daughter, here in America, and Dr. Müller, in Australia, and wrote to them. They did not reply.”

  “He contacted them?”

  “As a researcher. Not as the son of survivors.”

  “Victims,” said Mrs. Goldschmidt. He squeezed her hand.

  “When did he write those letters?” Matthias asked.

  “About two years ago.”

  “Can you be more precise?”

  “Why does it matter?” asked Mrs. Goldschmidt.

  “Because Gerd Müller’s son turned up at my hotel last August.”

  “Felix wrote his letters before that,” said Mr. Goldschmidt. “In the spring.”

  No one spoke for a few moments. Then Matthias said: “And Bernie went to Andros and Happy Standish—von Trautschke’s grandson—went to Aix.”

  “About this Bernie you must be right,” said Mr. Goldschmidt. “But there was no connection between the grandson and the letters.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Felix met him by accident, at a party. Felix knew the name from his research. That’s how it started. Felix made the approach. Felix liked him. He was the grandson of a monster, but he was not a monster. He knew nothing about his grandfather.”

  “So he said,” said Mrs. Goldschmidt.

  “No, Hilda. Felix would not be mistaken about something like that. The boy knew his grandfather was German and had died in the war, but that was all.”

  “Did they come here together?” Matthias asked.

  “Pardon me?” said Mr. Goldschmidt.

  “When your son borrowed the suitcase.”

  “Felix came alone.”

  “So they met later in Florida.”

  “We know nothing about that,” said Mrs. Goldschmidt. “Felix was here only for a few hours. He was in a great hurry. He mentioned Happy Standish, but said nothing about what they talked about or … anything.”

  “Sea on fire,” said Matthias, so quietly that Nina thought he was talking to himself.

  Mrs. Goldschmidt heard him too. “What?” she said.

  Matthias rose, walked across the room, leaned against the door. Nina wondered if he could ever be comfortable indoors. She had heard of men like that but never seen one.

  “I know what they talked about,” Matthias said. “Von Trautschke didn’t die.” Nina looked at the old couple. Their faces were colorless; they scarcely seemed to be breathing. “At least not on April 2, 1945. He escaped to the Bahamas in a U-boat. I believe he blew it up with the crew on board, so there would be no witnesses. Most of the wreckage must have gone to the bottom. But, by an accident of underwater geology, some of it didn’t.” He told them what he had seen in the domed chamber under Zombie Bay. “In 1953, bits of wreckage must have started floating up in the blue hole. Maybe a storm stirred things up, maybe it was just the result of normal tidal forces over time. Hiram Standish, Senior, and a partner dove down and plugged the leak, but something went wrong and Hiram drowned. The partner survived to tell Inge Standish about it.”

  Mr. Goldschmidt moistened his lips as though he wanted to speak, but no words came. Mrs. Goldschmidt took a deep breath and said: “Is this partner still alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Matthias said. “He would be very old by now.”

  “We are very old,” said Mrs. Goldschmidt. Her eyes filled with tears, quickly dried up. Mr. Goldschmidt turned to her and smiled his shy smile. She took her hands from his shoulders and dropped them to her sides. The smile remained on his face, stiff and meaningless, disconnected now from whatever was happening inside.

  Nina and Matthias left the tiny apartment. “Are they safe?” Nina asked.

  “Yes. Otherwise they’d be dead already.”

  Nina and Matthias walked toward the car. She knew it was a cold night, could see her breath; her skin burned anyway. She took out the car keys, but for some reason couldn’t unlock the car. Then she felt Matthias’s hand on hers, a cool hand, very big. He opened the car door.

  “You’d better tell me everything,” he said.

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Start with your baby.”

  Nina began to shake. “He’s not biologically valuable,” she said. “I have Jewish blood in me.” She kept shaking. Slowly, hesitantly, Matthias reached out and put his arms around her. Safe as houses, she thought again, but the message didn’t penetrate her body. Nina shook for a long time in the shadow of the building at 216 East Thirty-third Street.

  41

  Mother wore a black hat. Fritz wore a black hat. They were going on a trip.

  Or was this simply memory? Memory number two? A train compartment, Mother dabbing her eyes, Fritz giving him black licorice, snow outside the window.

  No: Mother was older now, Fritz was older, and he, Hiram Standish, Jr., was older. The older you were, the closer to death. Did it work the other way? If it did, he was the oldest, by far.

  It was another trip. They were older, Mother’s hat had no pin, she wore a black mink coat and had a bundle tucked inside the lapels. Fritz wheeled him out of the white room, down the long halls, to the front door. Mother opened it. Lying on his back, Happy felt the cold and saw falling snow.

  Snow. Was this memory number two, after all?

  No. He was on his back, hooked to the machines. And no train waited outside. At the extremity of his vision he could see a large van.

  “Get him in,” said Fritz.

  He heard a car door open. Heavy footsteps sounded on the threshold. Then an enormous man stood over him. The man had a swollen lip and a black eye. That made Happy slow to recognize him. But a man of that size was hard to forget, even if his hair was shorter now, and his tan not so deep. Happy remembered. His memory was sharp: he had seen this man once before, from a distance, walking on the dock at the funny little club on Andros Island.

  What was he doing here?

  The man was looking at him. “Christ,” he said.

  Then Mother came into view. “Spare me,” she said to the big man.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” the man said. “How was I to know?”

  “You could have found out his name,” said Mother. “Simple curiosity—”

  “Stop this at once,” Fritz said, somewhere out of sight. “It was bad luck, nothing more.”

  “Bad luck,” said Mother.

  “Hör auf!”

  Mother was silent.

  The big man pushed Happy toward the doorway. He felt the cold. Snowflakes blew inside the house, fell on his face, light as dust, without temperature. They melted and slowly froze on his skin. Then, abruptly, he stopped rolling.

  “Who’s that?” said the big man.

  Mother looked into the distance. Her eyes widened. Happy heard a car approach. Fritz said: “Quick.” And Mother took the bundle from underneath her coat, raised one corner of his blanket and tucked the bundle inside.

  The bundle warmed him.

  A car door closed. “Mrs. Standish,” said a woman, outside Happy’s sphere of vision.

  “Yes?” said Mother.

  “My name’s Delgado,” said the woman. “I’m a New York City police detective.”

  Mother blinked. “And what can we do for you, Detective?”

  T
he woman said: “It’s about a child kidnapping case I’m working on. There have been two, actually, one in Boston, one in Manhattan. In both cases, the mothers went to sperm banks for donor sperm. I’ve been digging around a little and I found that the two sperm banks—the Cambridge Reproductive Research Center and the Human Fertility Institute—are or were supported by the Standish Foundation. I’d like your cooperation in the investigation.”

  Mother smiled. “In what way, Detective?” Under the blanket, the warm bundle stirred. Happy felt tiny fingertips exploring the hair on his chest.

  “It might help to give us access to your donor records,” said the woman.

  “I wish we could, Detective. And of course, we’ll assist you in any way possible. But neither concern is part of the Standish Foundation anymore.”

  “I’m aware of that,” said the woman. She had drawn closer now, still out of Happy’s sight, but he could smell her: she smelled of cigarettes. Then he felt tiny lips rooting on his chest, and heard a tiny grunt. The woman continued: “But I don’t see—”

  “Excuse me,” said Mother. “Fritz, I don’t want him catching cold.”

  “Of course, madam,” said Fritz, and snapped his fingers. The big man wheeled Happy back inside the house.

  “Do go on,” Mother said.

  Fritz closed the door on the detective’s reply.

  “Jesus Christ,” the big man said quietly.

  “Shut up,” said Fritz.

  They wheeled Happy into the dining room. When was the last time he had been there? In another life. His bed came to rest under a portrait of his father. Happy gazed into his father’s eyes. They looked worried; did he have a premonition that the lusca would grab him? Happy’s mind was wandering back to his memories of the strange pond in the woods, when Fritz said: “Go wait in the kitchen.”

  The big man’s footsteps padded away.

  Then Fritz was gazing down at him. Happy looked into his pale blue eyes and saw nothing. Just pale blue circles with black holes in the center. They might have been manufactured from some high-tech material. Fritz sighed and shook his head.

  “Grandson,” he said.

  Grandson. Had he known it all along? Maybe. Had he resisted the knowledge? Maybe. But Fritz had always been good to him. Hadn’t he? Suddenly Happy remembered what Felix had told him. The memory bowled through his mind, making chaos of his inner world. At the same time, tiny moist lips rooted on his chest.

  “Grandson,” said Fritz. “Everything might have been different.” He winced and added: “If we had not attacked the Bolsheviks. Ach.” And he waved that thought aside with his old, liver-spotted hand. Happy looked at that hand and understood: not everything, but at least what was under the blanket.

  “Perhaps you have not developed as one would have wished,” Fritz continued. “But that is not so surprising in a country like this.” Happy looked into the black holes. “Still, you are my grandson. And I would not do this if it were not the humane and rational course, given your prognosis.” Then Happy heard the flick of a switch. “Besides,” said Fritz, “there is so little time.”

  Something was wrong. What was it? No air. That was it. Keine Luft. Like father like son. The pressure in his lungs had dropped to nothing. They were empty and the machine wasn’t pumping the next breath into him. He listened for the sound of the machine and heard nothing. The room was quiet. Happy wanted to gasp for breath, but could not. He could only wait for it. He gazed into the black holes and waited. No air came.

  Under the blanket, the tiny mouth finally found his nipple and began to suck.

  42

  They sat in the rented compact car, with the engine running, the heater turned up, the body of Dr. Crossman in the trunk; and they talked. Nina told Matthias everything. She told him about the papers she had signed at the Human Fertility Institute and Dr. Crossman’s questions about her genealogy and intelligence; about Laura Bain and the appraiser in her house; about the blue Bic pen and the bottle of Seconal that Dr. Crossman had given her. She described the volunteer with the strange accent on the maternity ward; she described the appraiser. She described all she could remember of the donor, VT-3(h).

  Matthias talked too. He told Nina about the diving accident and tank 27 containing carbon monoxide; about Hew Aikenfields scrapbooks and his death; about the domed chamber and Nottage’s drunken memories.

  Hours passed. The windows of the car misted over. They might have been teenage lovers with no place to go. Maybe that’s what the driver of the squad car thought as he slowed down, shone his flash on them, kept going. And after, like teenage lovers, they sat in silent thought. A band of gold appeared in the east. Nina, wiping the window, saw it reflected in the side mirror.

  “How does it fit together?” she said.

  “Like the blue hole,” Matthias told her.

  “What do you mean?”

  Matthias drew a picture in the mist on the windshield. “Blue hole. Tunnel. Chamber. And the ledge where I found the suitcase.” He sketched another tunnel leading away from the ledge; it led to an opening in the wall. “The drop-off wall. There has to be a cave in it somewhere, a back door, probably with another ledge, big enough to catch pieces of the sub, and Felix’s suitcase. Then tidal forces swept them inside. The point is there must be two entrances.”

  “So we’re in a blue hole?”

  “Exactly. You came in one end, I came in the other.”

  “And we bumped heads in the dark.”

  Matthias laughed. For the first time he glanced in the mirror, saw his crooked nose and bloody face. He stopped laughing and wiped away the diagram. “Let’s see what Inge Standish has to say about the Goldschmidts.”

  Nina was tired. Her cheek hurt. Her head hurt. But she sensed something in the man beside her, something that seemed to fill the car and radiate through her, something that made her answer, “Sounds good.”

  “Drive or navigate?” asked Matthias.

  “Navigate,” said Nina.

  “I was hoping you’d say that. I’m a lousy navigator.”

  They changed places. Nina navigated. Matthias drove. She got him onto the Hutchinson and leaned her head against the window. The cold glass took her headache away. She slept.

  Nina awoke in a postcard: Kodachrome-blue skies, snow-covered evergreens and a little country store with an American Flyer leaning on the porch and a wreath on the door. Then the door opened and the man in the windbreaker came out, carrying a brown bag. N. H. Matthias. Matt. He had cleaned the blood off his face and combed his hair; it was still wet. She thought of schoolboys in the morning.

  He saw she was awake and smiled. “Ham and cheese or tuna?”

  “Ham and cheese. I had tuna at Mrs. Standish’s.”

  That brought another smile.

  Nina ate ham and cheese on rye. It was delicious. There was coffee. It was delicious too.

  “Mustard okay?” he said.

  “Yup.”

  “It was that or mayo.”

  “Mustard every time.”

  “Same here.”

  The car rolled through the hill towns of western Connecticut. They ate their sandwiches and drank their coffee. Nina could almost feel nourishment flowing through her body, carrying reinforcements to every cell. For a few minutes she even forgot about Dr. Crossman in the trunk.

  “Were you really in a prison camp?”

  Matthias nodded.

  “In Vietnam?”

  “Cuba.” There was a long silence. “A long time ago. I was stupid.”

  “I doubt that.”

  They drove into Washington, past the green, the post office, the white church. “Do you have children?” Nina asked.

  “A boy,” Matthias replied. He turned onto 109 east. “He lives with his mother.”

  “Oh,” said Nina.

  They took the third right after the last house in town and drove between the tall trees to Mrs. Standish’s gate. It was open. They went through.

  An ambulance was parked in front of the h
ouse. Matthias stopped beside it. An attendant was closing the rear doors. Beside him stood a man with a stethoscope around his neck, beating his hands to stay warm. Dr. Robert.

  Matthias and Nina got out of the car. Dr. Robert’s eyes went to her, to him, back to her. “Dr. Robert,” she said.

  “That’s me.”

  “I saw you yesterday morning.”

  “Oh, yes.” He thumped his hands together. “It’s really for the best,” he said. “It always is, in these hopeless cases.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Happy Standish.” Dr. Robert nodded toward the ambulance. “He died this morning. Passed away.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of what? You name it.”

  “That’s your job, isn’t it?” Matthias said.

  Dr. Robert frowned. “The direct cause was pneumonia, I suppose.”

  Matthias went to the ambulance and looked through the window. Dr. Robert’s frown deepened. “Where’s Mrs. Standish?” Matthias asked.

  “Out of town,” Dr. Robert said. “Old Fritz called me.”

  “Old Fritz?”

  “The gardener. But he doesn’t seem to be around either. I checked the cottage.”

  “All set, Doc,” said the ambulance attendant.

  “Okay. I’ll be along in a while.”

  Matthias moved toward the house. The door was open. Nina went with him.

  “Just a minute,” said Dr. Robert. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s all right,” Nina said. “I’m a relative.”

  “A relative?”

  Nina closed the door behind her. She led Matthias through the house to Happy’s room. The screen of the wall monitor was blank. Nothing lay on the bed but an IV bag, half-full. Matthias looked at the photographs on the wall. “Left-handed,” he said.

  Nina had noticed that before, but it hadn’t hit her then. It hit her now, almost physically: she sucked in her breath. “And Laura’s donor was left-handed too.”

  “VT-one,” said Matthias, “Wilhelm von Trautschke. VT-two, Inge. VT-three, Happy.”

  Which is what (h) is for, Nina thought. She tried to bring to order the calendar in her mind. “Was the sperm taken after the accident?” she said.