Cave Dwellers

by Richard Grant

  An elderly woman waited there at a large desk, apparently in hope that someone would arrive to annoy her; a suitable expression was already on her face. She listened with grim impassivity while Oskar explained the nature of his visit.

  “You want to see Mr. Gandelmann?” she said finally, emphasizing the verb as though to confirm that his intention was not to strike, or applaud, or murder Mr. Gandelmann.

  “Yes, only to see him,” Oskar promised.

  The woman sighed, then opened a drawer and consulted a typewritten document that appeared to be a schedule. “Mr. Gandelmann would be at choir practice now,” she said. “That is in the nave. He prefers the acoustics there.”

  Evidently, she assumed that, being foreign, Oskar was also dull-witted. He saw no cause to disabuse her. She aimed a bony finger in what he took to be the direction of the cathedral.

  “I shouldn’t interrupt them,” she warned. At last she favored him with a cold smile, like an act of Christian charity.

  The cathedral was, it appeared, a work in progress. Its grounds were strewn in orderly fashion with chunks of limestone the size of steamer trunks. Oskar made his way past a crane, a crew of stonemasons shouting cheerfully in Italian and a phalanx of flying buttresses, before coming at last to the south transept, where a pair of huge doors hung open. There he left the sunlight for the cool depths of God’s anteroom.

  The place was dim, solemn and almost shockingly beautiful. The air smelled of burnt tapers, drying mortar and new-sawn wood. He saw no one about—but then the sound of high, clear voices floated down from the vaulted ceiling. The chant was Latin, the notes wavering and discordant, and after a moment came a tap of wood against wood, followed by a grown-up voice whose exact words were lost amid their own echoes but whose general tone—kindly, amused, exasperated—Oskar recognized at once.

  Something overcame him then, rising up to engulf him. A wave of reality.

  Until now, this journey had felt kind of like a dream. America was only half real, a place that existed in popular music, in the cinema, in boys’ tales of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, in lurid newspaper accounts of gangsters and hobos and crooked politicians living the life of Riley. Fairy-tale stuff, with Jewish bankers standing in for leering wolves. Nothing here could have the slightest connection with the mortally serious, blood-and-earth actuality of the Reich. Even Oskar’s mission felt like something of a lark—another yarn for the campfire when he got home. Hadn’t it started like all the rest, with the chanting of the Secret Anthem?

  Only now, as he heard Leo’s voice, did the reality of that other place seem to intrude here. Maybe it had clung to Leo’s coattails when he’d fled into exile.

  Oskar stepped deeper into the nave. Light entered from high above, through a row of clerestory windows awaiting their stained glass, covered now with paper that glowed amber where the sun burned through. To his right, behind an elevated pulpit, dark wood had been elaborately worked into pews and stalls, friezes, arches, a bishop’s chair and a soaring enclosure for the pipe organ. At the center of it all stood Leo Gandelmann, poised heronlike before a dozen fidgety sixth graders. He was the same as ever, down to the finely cut black suit that inexplicably looked cheap on him. He’d stopped talking, perhaps because the boys weren’t paying attention; a couple had noticed Oskar already, and others were turning to look. At any moment Leo would do likewise, and Oskar tried to prepare himself. But that was unnecessary. Leo looked around as though he’d known Oskar would be there and was expecting him. He gave Oskar a nod—a quick nod that said nothing but merely acknowledged the fact of his presence, Oskar in the cathedral, Oskar in America—and then turned back to his restless choristers. He gave a short cough, and they snapped to an unruly sort of attention. Whatever troubles Oskar was bringing would have to wait.

  —

  They sat close together out of necessity at a table in Leo’s tiny flat. Outside it was growing dark, a few streetlights had come on and—adding a touch of drollery—some of the larger mammals at a nearby zoo were energetically resisting efforts to shoo them indoors for the night. That’s how Leo explained the racket, and the idea must have amused him, because he stood up to crank the casement open wider.

  “So I got your little package,” he said, his back to Oskar. Dein kleines Paket: he made it sound chiming and childish.

  “Ah,” said Oskar. “That’s good.”

  Leo stared out the window and said nothing else for a minute or longer. The zoo noises began to subside, though there were lingering roars and the piercing cry of what Oskar imagined to be a large predatory fowl.

  “They’re going to kill you.” Leo turned finally to meet his eyes. There might have been a trace of melancholy in his expression, but if so, Oskar’s approaching death didn’t seem the primary cause of it. “Maybe not right away. But by the third reel, you’re dead. Does that matter? I mean, does it make you wish you hadn’t gotten involved? Because for all you know, maybe I destroyed the whole lot. Opened the box, saw what was in there and tossed it in the river. For your own good, my friend! And by the way, how dare you drag me into…whatever this is you’re doing. What are you doing, anyway? Last I heard you’d joined the army.”

  Oskar remembered Leo too well to be caught off guard by any of this—or, to put it differently, to give him the sort of reaction he probably hoped for.

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” he said, all too aware that his paltry apology would mean next to nothing. “I know it was presumptuous to give them your name. You’ve made a new life here, and I had no right to intrude. But please understand, I’m trying to do what I believe—what I hope—is my duty as a German officer. No ironic comments, I beg you. Or go ahead, make them. I’m grateful for your help—truly I am. But it isn’t just me you’re helping.”

  “Oh, so it’s what, then—Germany?” Leo’s eyes were somewhat wild. “The glorious Fatherland? My own dear Heimat?”

  Oskar feared this question, because the only answer he could give would strike Leo as naïve, or sentimental, or corny—probably all three at once. He gave it anyway, because it was the only one he had. “A nation is more than its government. Think of the tradition we’ve inherited, you and I. The culture of Beethoven and Goethe. The language. Our whole worldview. Or think of the bigger things, the greatest things, beyond all borders: science, art, philosophy. Human decency. The rule of law. For me it’s not so complicated—it’s a question of patriotism. A higher patriotism that looks beyond the current rulers to the soul of Germany itself.”

  “Patriotism? Die ewige deutsche Seele?” Leo shook his head. “Poor Oskar. This is so far beyond your depth. Joining the army…all right, that made a certain amount of sense. But this? Did they choose you on account of your lovely English?”

  Oskar refused to answer. What could he say? No, I think they might have chosen me because of you.

  Leo slipped into a grating American drawl. “You know, I did open that package of yours. Did you think I wouldn’t? And then I closed it again. My God, where does all this stuff come from, Oskar? Do you even know who put it together? But hey, what a great read! So eye-opening. You have to marvel, really, at the purity of the thing. Most people, you know, they get cynical over time—they don’t mean to, it just creeps up on them. But the Nazis! They’ve made it an art form.” Then a stiff translation from the German, reciting from memory: “ ‘Military action is to commence no later than spring 1940, but only if—’ ”

  Oskar tried to interrupt, but Leo kept talking, louder than before.

  “ ‘—only if a suitable pretext has been arranged on the political side. Above all, it is necessary that our actions be presented as purely defensive in character, coming in response to a definite threat.’ ” Then, in Americanese: “Ain’t it grand? I can’t help wondering, though—who’s the audience here? Not the newspapers, I expect. Your masters won’t think too highly of the Western press. Tell me if I’m off base, Oskar. Or should I call you something else now? Did they give you a new name? This is awfully damned
exciting.”

  He spoke so fast that Oskar could barely follow. Some of the colloquialisms were unfamiliar—but no, he thought sadly, Leo probably isn’t far off base.

  Insofar as one could do so in such quarters, Leo began to pace. That cheap-looking suit made him resemble a marionette, his arms flapping as though tugged by invisible strings.

  “Your bosses are probably thinking: We can’t afford to deal with the Roosevelt crowd, they hate Germany, they’ve turned their backs on Christian values, they dance to jungle music and breed mulatto children, their New Deal is just Bolshevism wrapped in red, white and blue. No, we need to find someone more sympathetic, someone who shares our values, hardheaded realists who see things for what they are. In a word, Republicans.”

  Oskar rubbed his forehead. For all he knew, Leo was right. At least nothing he said was obviously wrong.

  “I can see it all now.” From the fixity of Leo’s gaze, one might have thought this literally true. “Gentlemen with red stripes on their pants, heads bent over a good brandy. ‘Is it not your opinion, meine Herren’ ”—he spoke now in a high-precision Hochdeutsch whose consonants could be used to etch glass—“that we ought to be talking to someone over there?’ Though of course, Oskar, these fine gentlemen wouldn’t dream of talking face-to-face. What, with Americans? A pack of upstarts with dubious ancestry and no understanding of how the Great Game is played? Unvorstellbar! No, let’s send a messenger—no one important, someone who won’t be missed if the whole operation blows up.”

  He turned with a malicious smile, as though the perfect scheme had just occurred to him. “Say—how about Langweil? He seems a game young lad. And while we’re at it, let’s not use our own channels of communication. Himmler’s reading our mail, it might get traced to us—we might be held accountable! Maybe Langweil’s got a friend. Someone in exile. A Jew, maybe. A Socialist Jew. A Socialist Jew artist—that’s three nasty birds with one stone.”

  Oskar couldn’t suppress the impulse to laugh. Despite everything, Leo was still Leo. “You’re not in real danger, I don’t think,” he said. “No one followed me here. And I was told the documents would be posted from Switzerland. Once I’m gone, no one will trouble you.”

  Leo shook his head hard, back and forth. “Did I say I don’t want to be troubled? Oskar, I’m happy you thought of me. I take it as a compliment that you just blithely assumed I’d want to join your little conspiracy. So yes, that’s my answer, not that you bothered to ask. I’d do anything to get back at them. Of course this plan is stupid—I’m sorry, Oskar, that’s the truth of it—but still, I’m happy to do what I can. It’s been so…”

  He took a couple of steps and turned, throwing his arms out.

  “I can’t tell you what it’s been like being over here, where none of it seems to matter. These Americans—a perfectly nice people, but really, they have no idea. And it doesn’t bother them! They have their baseball and their automobiles. They have movie stars getting divorced. They have a preacher who shouts on the radio, telling them they ought to be mad as hell at I don’t know who, but there’s always somebody. They have Lucky Lindy promising them Hitler only wants peace and Roosevelt’s just trying to drag them into some European quarrel. Did you hear, Lindy’s now talking about moving his family to Germany? It’s true! So that his children can grow up ‘in a more bracing moral atmosphere.’ Who could make up such a thing, Oskar? There are times I can barely stand it over here.”

  He sat down, looking drained. The zoo noises had waned to an occasional desultory bellow.

  “We could get some dinner,” Oskar said. “I’ve got money. Anyplace you like.”

  Leo seemed not to hear. “What I’m saying, Oskar, is I’m glad to be involved—glad just for the chance to be involved. All my energy, my talent, it’s wasted here. I’m not even writing music anymore, do you know that? Korngold’s tossing off scores for costume dramas, Weill’s working in Tin Pan Alley, while Gandelmann is waving a baton at a bunch of squirming Kerlchen.”

  “Bach was a Kapellmeister.”

  “Bach had a fucking Kapellenchor. I’m allowed to babysit in the afternoons while the music director’s napping, to give after-school lessons to older boys who fail to show a proper interest in sport. If I behave, someday I may conduct Evensong for nine old ladies and a queer priest.” Unexpectedly, he smiled. “Though I admit there are advantages to being insignificant. If I make offensive remarks, it’s because I don’t speak the language properly. If I show up to teach hungover…well, poor Mr. Gandelmann, such a sad case, how he must have suffered over there, how noble we are to give him sanctuary! Because that’s what this is, you know—not a real job. And I’m grateful, Oskar. I am. I’m living in heaven compared to the people over there. And the students aren’t so bad, really. One of them actually shows a bit of promise.”

  Oskar nodded distractedly. A quirk of Leo’s phrasing—“over there,” darüber, connoting a sense of nearness, like a ball lying just beyond the neighbors’ fence—struck him as oddly poignant. Home couldn’t be so far away if it was only darüber. Did Leo feel safe here? Did he wake at night thinking he’d heard a knock at the door?

  “His father’s trying to pack him off to something called the International Youth Leadership Summit,” Leo was saying, having evidently switched topics again. “The idea is to invite the sons of influential foreigners, pen them up together for a few weeks, fill their heads with National Socialist ‘philosophy,’ if you will, and send them home to tell everyone how swell things are in Nazi Germany. This kid’s father—a senator, no less—thinks it would be just the thing for him. But he’s frustrated because all the invitations are going to European boys whose fathers actually matter. What can a Yankee politician do for the Reich? So it seems my student will get a reprieve. But can you imagine?”

  Oskar nodded, feigning interest and glancing at his watch, a gesture not lost on Leo.

  “Running late, are we? Places to go, people to see, national secrets to barter? Don’t let me detain you.”

  “No, Leo, it’s not—”

  But he’d spun around and was opening a cabinet in the little alcove that made do for a kitchen. There was a clatter as flimsy metal cookware was dislodged; then he extracted what looked like an extra-large box of chocolates wrapped in gleaming gold foil and tied with a large red bow. If he’d actually opened the package, he’d done a neat job of resealing it. He handed it to Oskar with an air of reluctance, as though he’d grown fond of this souvenir of his terrifying homeland.

  “If they do kill you,” he said, looking Oskar straight in the eye, “I’m happy I got to see you again. If they don’t, let’s have that dinner sometime. But after the war!”

  It was the first time Oskar had heard anybody say after the war. It rang strangely in his ears because of both things it implied: that war would come and that you could dream of surviving it.

  Only in America.

  —

  The Q Street Bridge was neither long nor grand. What it was chiefly was dark, despite twin streetlamps at the midway point. Yes, there were buffaloes. Four of them, in bronze, further declarations of an artistic theme carried over from the main structure, which featured iconic images of the American West—arrows, eagle feathers, Indian braves—carved in limestone. Like most German boys of his generation, Oskar had grown up reading Karl May and had spent a certain mandatory phase of his childhood creeping through the woods in makeshift buckskins, smeared with war paint, whooping ecstatically as he menaced his friends with a homemade tomahawk. He wondered what sort of game he was playing now and, in particular, who was coming to this rendezvous: Lugan again, the unknown V. or someone else entirely?

  He’d arrived early—not too early, he hoped, though he felt ridiculous standing around with the flashy box in his hand—because he wanted to get a sense of the location. His guidebook informed him that the bridge had been built in 1914–15 to connect two neighborhoods, Georgetown and Dupont Circle. The map showed it spanning a narrow green strip identified
as Rock Creek Park. From here the park looked insignificant, more like a gorge whose shoulders were too steep to build on, and the neighborhoods were hidden behind mature trees, making the bridge feel quite isolated and muting the noise of the city to a level at which he could hear water gurgling below. Supposing that would be Rock Creek, with time on his hands, he decided to go down to it.

  He found a little path through the undergrowth tight against the bridge and slipped and clambered down the embankment. The bridge now hulked above him, four stories tall. The creek was high with the spring runoff; even so it was a tiny thing, no more than fifteen meters wide, stray boulders carving the flow into narrower channels. He tossed a couple rocks into the water, hoping to gauge the depth, and one of them struck the channel with a satisfying ploosh. Maybe deep enough to swim in, maybe not.

  He climbed back up feeling oddly satisfied, the exertion having taken the edge off his nerves. It was just shy of ten now: time for the last stage of his assignment.

  Oskar took his position at the eastern end of the bridge and waited no more than half a minute. I’ll be right on time, the note had promised, and with Teutonic precision a pair of headlamps appeared at the opposite end, slowly moving forward. Oskar could make out a long, low-slung automobile, its roof a lighter color than its body. He stepped onto the bridge, trying to match his own speed to that of the driver, who evidently was highly cautious. Maybe this was how things normally happened in matters of international intrigue, but somehow Oskar didn’t think so. Something about the car, the fact of there being a car instead of a person, the headlamps blazing in his face and flashing off the foil box in his hand—all of it made him consider his next few steps very carefully.