by Nir Baram
He was babbling, and restless, Thomas could see. Something was bothering the man.
They were standing on the broad patio decorated with statues and paintings of ancient creatures: snakes with human faces whose tongues curled out from the walls, a horned beast whose skin was spotted with patches of black fur, and even birds of prey, whose wingtips were shaped like sword blades.
‘Look at this.’ Carlson’s gaze circled the patio. ‘It’s a European disease, to weave all kinds of historical threads around the present, as if everything has to be a gesture to something old. That’s the problem in Berlin: too many clashing styles and periods. A single street looks like a museum and an amusement park.’
How many times could a person say the same thing? Annoyed, Thomas turned away. Through the large windows lampposts were spreading lunar light, milky transparencies melding sky and earth.
‘A whole balcony built around a single theme!’ Thomas heard the young architect explaining his concept to a group of tall, fair-haired men, diplomats, apparently, from Scandinavia. A pale woman stepped between them. She wore a diamond tiara, and her long body was enveloped in gold cloth. There was a moment of tension as she went past. ‘It’s a gesture to man’s desire to blend with nature. Most of the artists that we’ve exhibited here are influenced by cave paintings.’ His voice was low, and his accent was clipped in an upper-class way. In contrast, Thomas sounded a bit strident. ‘Here, for example, is a fascinating version of the carnival scene from the Cave of the Trois-Frères.’
The woman laughed briefly, and Carlson fixed her with a bold look of satisfaction at finding someone who shared his opinion, and such a beautiful woman. ‘Wonderful festive spirit!’ he shouted and shook Thomas’s shoulder. The man really had no shame. Thomas decided to keep his distance for the rest of the evening. Carlson was losing control, and the presence of an undisciplined Yank, protected by the aura of a country no reasonable person would underestimate, could be damaging for a local. Mailer came up close to Thomas and stared at his face. ‘Drink something, Thomas! How come you never enjoy anything?’
An SD officer in a black uniform approached them, a strong, straight-backed man who took mincing steps like a girl. His eyes were light, almost transparent, so that for a moment Thomas felt like he was looking in a mirror. He had already met the officer at Milton. For several months Carlson and Jack Fiske, by now the company’s president, had been meeting with delegations from the Economic Office, from the SD and from Hermann Göring’s office. Someone had told Thomas about rumours connecting Milton with a secret deal, something to do with the Jews.
Thomas wasn’t insulted that he had been excluded: one felt insulted only when a clear loss was at stake. All the rest was just mental trickery, reruns of childhood pains, things to be amused by in Erika Gelber’s clinic.
‘Good evening, Herr Mailer,’ said the SD man. He didn’t greet Thomas.
‘Hello there, Oberleutnant Bauer. Long time no see,’ Carlson Mailer responded distractedly, not even looking at him.
‘Hauptsturmführer,’ the officer corrected him stiffly. ‘We met exactly one week ago.’
‘These days that’s a long time, wouldn’t you say?’ Carlson called out, and his eyes drilled into the group of tall men who were blocking his view of the woman in the tiara. ‘May I order you something to drink?’
‘No, thank you, Herr Mailer. I won’t be staying long,’ he said. There was open contempt in his voice, which was cold in any event. ‘The truth is, I was surprised by your decision to hold the party this year.’
‘Really?’ Carlson raised his glass. ‘It’s a tradition at Milton. I’m sure you wouldn’t deny that tonight we’re welcoming in a new year?’
‘It’s a ten-year-old tradition,’ Thomas said to back Carlson up. Had he addressed the officer obsequiously?
‘Now that your ambassador has been withdrawn from Germany, the connection between our countries isn’t what it was,’ the officer declared. He still hadn’t even graced Thomas with a glance.
Carlson understood. His eyes narrowed, and a vein pulsed in the middle of his forehead. He leaned towards the officer. ‘Hauptmann Bauer, are you speaking on behalf of Germany now? Because this evening I met people who really are entitled to speak on behalf of your homeland, and they believe it’s merely a temporary misunderstanding, and maybe we can do without overly zealous young men who are looking for hatred where there is friendship. Tonight, on four continents, fifteen Milton parties are being held, and can you guess which one Jack Fiske, the president of our company, decided to attend?’
Sometimes Carlson was pleasantly surprising. Thomas also despised the pretension of the shoe-shine boys on the street corner who gave speeches in the name of the state. ‘Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he happens to belong’—in his imagination he brandished Schopenhauer like a hammer to smash the shining glass of the officer’s eyes.
At least this time Carlson was considerate and did not refer to him as ‘our senior colleague, Thomas Heiselberg’. In his first meetings with people close to the regime he used to gush, when introducing Thomas, that he was ‘a four-hundred-per-cent Aryan fellow’, as though speaking about distilled alcohol. In private Mailer and Fiske used to make fun of all the stupid Aryan gibberish, and their laughter would ring out from behind closed doors, laughter that emphasised for Thomas the foreignness that separated them. Even though he didn’t talk about the race issue in the typical style of party members, to the Americans he would always be a German with affected manners, a foreigner who spoke well ‘in all those European languages’.
Bauer said nothing and did not shift his gaze from Carlson. Two identical wrinkles creased his nose. Thomas believed that Carlson’s defiance was meant to impress the woman with the tiara, who was looking at them now for the first time, with an air of triumph: finally somebody was performing a manoeuvre worthy of her beauty.
‘I very much hope it is only a misunderstanding,’ the officer fired back. ‘Many of the people you invited won’t come tonight because of this provocation. Would it occur to you that we should withdraw our ambassador from Washington because some niggers in America complain?’
‘Very well. We’re not going to solve all the world’s problems tonight,’ Carlson grumbled and stepped backwards in an effort to get rid of Bauer. His good cheer had evaporated. Unexpected difficulties always made Carlson feel that some personal injustice had been done to him. And who was to blame? Enemies. Friends. Fate. God.
‘You must understand,’ Bauer said, ‘that these recent events may have an adverse effect on our common project. Reichsmarschall Göring’s people are not pleased.’ He turned and walked away.
Carlson was perplexed. ‘Go to hell, you bastard,’ he muttered. He stood there for a few minutes, calling the waitresses ‘sweetie’ and ‘doll’, knocking off drink after drink. Afterwards he looked around with bloodshot eyes and called out, ‘Make sure that man doesn’t get near me again!’
Thomas led him to a corner, where Carlson confessed that Bauer was right on target about the mood in America: Fiske had recently received messages from some damn government officials, yes, even senators, asking him to reconsider Milton’s connections with Germany. ‘And you know what he said, the sly fox? His friends at Lockheed had let him know that their shitty aeroplanes are landing in Japan right now, and technicians from Lockheed are helping the slant-eyes service them. So as long as there is a single Lockheed employee in Japan, he’ll do as much business in Germany as he pleases.’
Thomas didn’t ask about the secret deal. He was perturbed by the question: what kind of business was Milton doing with the SD and with Göring’s Ministry of Aviation? But after witnessing the latest exchange, he decided he would be better off if he didn’t know anything about it. He had no wish to work with that officer, and, seeing Mailer’s swollen face—he had never seen him so drunk—he realised that his fondness for any deal was even less th
an his fondness for Bauer.
He left Carlson on the patio and went back into the hall. He noticed that light from the chandelier fell unevenly: near the dais the white shirts and the gold epaulets on the black uniforms glowed, but thick strips of shadow stretched between the bar and the staircase. Perhaps it would be a good idea to direct the attention of the architect, king of the beasts, to this strange effect. Chains of little German and US flags were hung on either side of the stairs, while above them, as though in a different world, a gigantic poster bathed in the light of the chandeliers:
1939—YEAR OF FRIENDSHIP AND BROTHERHOOD THE MILTON COMPANY
Thomas twisted his cuffs. He felt that the nauseating odour of Carlson’s hair tonic had clung to his suit, and he remembered in disgust the way he had shaken his shoulder. An attractive black-haired man in a striped jacket was leaning against one of the sculptures, and several pretty women had gathered around him.
One of them, about thirty, bared a shoulder underneath a pink fur coat with ostrich feathers on the collar. ‘Herr Fritzsche,’ she wheedled, ‘it’s so wonderful to hear you on the radio. Your voice simply relieves all my pains.’
‘Really, madam, I just broadcast the news and keep the German people informed,’ the man with the famous voice said modestly, wiping his brow with a handkerchief exactly on his receding hairline.
‘Did I tell you I’m the understudy in a new production of Schiller?’ The woman set her head at a coquettish angle. ‘You must know about it, Intrigue and Love.’
‘Of course, wonderful!’ Fritzsche said. ‘I had the honour of accompanying the Führer and the Minister of Propaganda to the premiere. Afterwards we talked about the marvellous acting in our theatre, which isn’t afraid of pathos, or of good old romanticism.’
Thomas studied Fritzsche: he could see how much he was trying to disguise the feeling that he didn’t deserve to be loved. Evidence of people’s admiration for him must pile up at his feet every day, and he must long to exhibit the light touch of a man used to being loved, but he didn’t have it.
‘I’ve been reading alarming reports in the papers,’ a woman said. ‘There won’t be a war, will there? My two sons are in the Wehrmacht.’
A stabbing pain passed through Thomas’s body, sharpening in his ribs.
‘As you know, I work very closely with the Minister of Propaganda,’ Fritzsche boasted, ‘and I can guarantee that Germany is doing everything it can to avoid war.’
‘Herr Fritzsche.’ Thomas approached him and bowed. ‘On behalf of Milton allow me to thank you for choosing to celebrate New Year’s Eve with us. My name is Thomas Heiselberg. I am a partner in the company.’
A shadow crossed Fritzsche’s face. Had Thomas addressed him impolitely? Since when had he doubted his ability to win people over? He hadn’t been at his best recently. A wind was blowing that he found hard to read.
Thomas felt the familiar weakness spread through his body. It was as if dark veils were wrapped around his eyes. People became shadows. Everything blurred—the colours of the dresses, the jewellery, the intricacies of the light. With tremendous effort he turned away from Fritzsche and looked around the hall. Like a drowning man, he sought something to grasp, as Erika Gelber had taught him to do at such moments: find something that has the spark of life and concentrate on it until the malaise passes. He couldn’t stand the term ‘attack’, which was how she described these events. But where would he find the spark of life in this hall? Was there anything here that his imagination couldn’t annihilate? The party was already over, wrapped up, stuffed into the past. This wasn’t a new feeling: even in his childhood his imagination had cast a pall over holidays or birthdays, coating the people around him in a sickly, dying yellow. People like him, seeing death everywhere, would never understand how others could celebrate the passage of time.
Meanwhile he heard his voice speaking to Fritzsche, praising his talent as a broadcaster, hinting at business proposals. How proud he was that his voice remained steady.
‘Let’s meet soon,’ Fritzsche proposed. ‘I’d be happy if a senior representative of Milton such as yourself honoured us with a visit to the radio station. I understand that your company and the government have been working together of late.’
Was Fritzsche referring to the secret deal? Actually, that didn’t matter now! He had had a victory—to hell with all the heretical thoughts that only weakened him. Miserable souls like Bauer wouldn’t like him, but Fritzsche wanted to be close to him. People like Fritzsche would always trust him. Fritzsche said something else, but Thomas didn’t understand. He felt his smile become tense. There he was, standing steadily, radiating charm.
He withdrew but not before he heard Fritzsche complete his conquest of the actress with a story about his beloved mother, who had passed away last year. With tentative steps, he headed for the bar. His body gradually began to obey him again.
Thomas glanced at his watch. He had arranged to meet the head of the Paris office along with Fiske and Carlson at the bar at 11.30 p.m. to drink a toast to the New Year. Thomas was sorry that Federico Tofano, who ran the Italian operation, had to stay in Rome. He would have been proud to introduce the warm and confident Federico to the American bosses. The head of the Polish branch, Mieczyslaw Buszkowsky—they called him Bizha in Berlin—had sent a message that ‘in consequence of recent events, I will find it very difficult to travel to Germany, and the continued existence of the branch is in doubt’.
Thomas, whose opinion of Bizha and his accomplishments was limited, wired him back: ‘The differences between Germany and Poland should not influence Milton, which has kept its distance from politics since its establishment.’
Bizha had not answered. Carlson was sympathetic: ‘Bizha knows—just as you do, by the way—that sometimes politics swallows up everything, including business.’
He decided that Carlson had abandoned the Polish branch as a lost cause. But Thomas—who had established the office himself, located it on the corner of Zgoda and Szpitalna in Warsaw, in a building that housed big companies from all over the world, supervised the renovations, and even cut the ribbon at its opening—did not intend to give up.
A group of women sat beneath the painting of an ochre rhinoceros. A stick was glued to its lips. Thomas gaped at its red eyes. ‘An ugly rumour has reached my ears that Göring’s baby daughter isn’t his,’ he heard one say, a woman wearing a white blouse buttoned to the top and a grease-stained black tie. He remembered her name was Scholtz-Klink. She had accosted him at an earlier event to ask whether Milton could advise how their organisation, the Nazi Women’s League, could increase its influence.
Then he heard, ‘And eternal gratitude to the adjutant,’ followed by a chorus of soft laughter.
‘In my opinion, it’s a scandal for us to mention such crude gossip. Hermann Göring is a splendid man,’ said a young, innocent voice. ‘He’s so romantic. No man ever loved a woman the way he loved his first wife.’
‘Did you hear that Elena von Brink committed suicide last week?’ the lady from the Nazi Women’s League said in a stage whisper.
‘It’s all because her despicable Jewish therapist disappeared,’ an angry voice rejoined.
‘But she was in love with him,’ the sweet young voice trilled, ‘and, when true love disappears, we die.’
Thomas wanted to turn around and look at the woman with the pure voice, but he was reluctant to make his eavesdropping obvious.
‘I advised her to stop such unnecessary treatment,’ complained a voice with a faint tremolo. ‘That Jew only made her sink deeper into morbid fantasies!’
How the devil had it not occurred to him? That is to say, from time to time the idea had flashed through his mind, but hadn’t solidified into real understanding. Only fear can make clear something so simple: Erika Gelber’s time in Berlin was growing shorter.
Immediately after that night in November she had been evicted from her clinic. Apparently the people who had been protecting her and delayed the cancellation
of her licence were no longer able to help. A few days later she had received a letter forbidding her to treat Germans, and she was required to pay a tax for the damage done to her office. She didn’t tell Thomas about the tax. She never confided in him about her troubles. Even when the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute underwent Aryanisation, and she had to sever all connections with it, he only learned the facts from his own sources.
That week he called her to find out whether she was safe and to tell her that his mother had died. She expressed condolences, of course, but a week later she told him that to her regret she could no longer treat him. He begged her to take him for a final session, and at that meeting explained to her that she needed money. He offered to double her fee, in cash, and to hold their sessions in his house. ‘After all, I just lost my mother,’ he added.
He also convinced Paul Blum, a friend who worked at one of the Jewish banks, to try psychoanalysis. The therapist had to be Jewish, of course, and Erika Gelber was the best. ‘Things are happening to you that a person can’t bear, Blum. It’s horrible the way the world you knew has suddenly ceased to exist. You have to analyse the experience, or else you’ll go crazy. You know what a tragedy I had. Without Erika, I would have jumped off some tower.’