Anniversaries

by Uwe Johnson

  For that girl from Fürstenberg? Sure, Marie. It’s just that Ol’ Erichson had gone missing back in February 1942, his mother was all alone with his sister in Wendisch Burg. He had to get there before Sokolovsky was done.

  The conqueror of Berlin? Who died yesterday? That’s right. General Sokolovsky, commander of the Soviet armed forces in East Germany, marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union, ran the Berlin blockade. 1897–1968. The one who thought Americans could never win in Vietnam except with atomic bombs, which would be World War III.

  The deserter waited in a forest ranger’s home on one of the farms by Top Lake, four miles from Wendisch Burg. The house was full of strangers. An SS tank unit was making the area unsafe, looting the last food supplies, seizing the men of fighting age. D. E. spent a lot of time up in trees there. Then, when the first Russians came to look around, in their low-slung horse-drawn carts, D. E. had to keep watch, not hide. He sat on the edge of a desk by the window and watched the road running past the woods to Wendisch Burg. As soon as he saw anyone from the Red Army he had to run through the house and warn the women so that they could escape out the back doors into the dense underbrush. He didn’t continuously stare at the road, he relied on his ears too. There was a lot of luggage lying around the place, from people who had hanged themselves in the woods, and in one suitcase D. E. found a reprint of Albert Einstein’s remarks in the Proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, 1915: Jewish physics. He read them slower than he had ever read anything in his life, while listening for hoofbeats or rattling carts. His fifth time through, he had to admit that he would never truly understand this theory of general relativity, although he could memorize it. His thought had run up against a solid wall, it was downright painful. Sometimes his efforts at understanding unexpectedly turned into a sense of flying, of effortless soaring motion. Then the autopilot crashed without any clear explanation of why. D. E. was not yet eighteen years old, and was forced to admit that there was truly a limit beyond which his thoughts could not go. That this would be his life. Talented, if you ask him, but no genius. In mid-May the rumor crossed the lake that the Red Army was going to reopen Wendisch Burg High School, with Sedenbohm as principal, and D. E. set out. And so he missed his sister, who had run away to join him.

  – When you were keeping a lookout from the corner of the desk in the forest, that was because of the rapes? Marie asks. She is no longer kneeling next to D. E., she has leaned back away from him. They can watch each other as if in a contest, neither one yielding, neither one relenting. The older of the two nods glumly, now he’d probably have welcomed some assistance from the elder Cresspahl. She folds her paper, lays it aside, and now she too watches him, slightly curious. If you want to be part of our family let’s see how you do at answering children’s questions, D. E.

  – It was: D. E. says calmly: because of the rapes.

  – That was your job there.

  – And in return I was given food and lodging.

  – And the forestry people had relatives in Fürstenberg, and one of them was a girl who had gone into hiding in the woods near Wendisch Burg?

  – Who brought up the subject of my affairs? Anyway it was hers too!

  – And who did that one end up marrying?

  – A surgeon in Hamburg, if you want to know.

  – That was a risky trip for her if the Russians were already in Fürstenberg.

  – She was shrewd for seventeen. She made it through in one piece.

  – And: Marie says, as dismissively as him: did you take an oath to Hitler?

  – Three times.

  – Is it right to call him “the Austrian” so much, the way a certain lady of our acquaintance does?

  – It is right, that’s where he was from. The lady in question is probably also referring to the fact that many of his helpers came from there. She would also no doubt have preferred history to take a different course, branching off at, say, the North German Confederation, 1866–70.

  – Don’t bother trying, D. E. You won’t trip her up. She won’t fall into your trap.

  – Which I undertook solely to keep New York City clean.

  – And is she wrong?

  – It wasn’t an Austrian brand of insanity, if I’m to believe my doctors.

  – What did you do with your steel helmet?

  – Buried it.

  – And when other people, farmers, found it plowing—

  – the skeleton was missing.

  – And your sister?

  – Died in May 1945.

  – How old?

  – The same age as Gesine in July 1945.

  – And you’re not going to tell me any more than that?

  – The rest, my dear Mary, I will hold back.

  – And were there really Red Army cemeteries on market squares in Mecklenburg?

  – Not in Wendisch Burg. In other places there’d be an obelisk with a red star on it, lit up at night.

  – D. E.!

  – The public utilities connected it by an underground cable to the street lighting.

  – So, what’ll we do now?

  Finally D. E. can assume his other role: protector, initiator, maker of plans. – We could go to the amusement park in Palisades Park; but Marie won’t spend a whole Saturday on such childish things, even if he’s in the mood to. Any ideas in the paper? The Times has a picture of the Y Bridge in Saigon, taken from above, so that the street fighting can only be guessed at; that recalls our Triboro Bridge on the other side of Manhattan? Neither of them wants to go there. A trip to Boston is rejected as well; we’ve missed the train to Philadelphia; finally we decided on a trip to the Atlantic, Rockaway Beach. But not the way D. E. thinks. – On the subway! Marie says. – On the subway! Because that way his car will stay parked outside our building, that way he can’t drop us off afterward on his way home, that way she has him for the rest of the evening, maybe even tomorrow.

  May 12, 1968 Sunday

  “QUOTATION OF THE DAY: ‘We tried to go down one street three times and so far we’ve had 5 killed and 17 wounded in my company. I don’t care whose birthday it is, we’re going back to clean them out.’ —S. Sgt. Herman Strader in Saigon, where the 2,512th birthday of Buddha was celebrated yesterday.”

  © The New York Times

  “AIRLINES AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES FOUND UNABLE TO COPE WITH FLOURISHING CRIME AT KENNEDY

  By Charles Grutzner

  The flood of recent thefts, including diamonds, blue-chip stocks, palladium and other high-value cargo, at Kennedy International Airport has focused attention on the activities of organized criminals at the city’s airports.

  One of the cases brought the sentencing last week in Federal Court of the nephew of the reputed Mafia boss, Joseph Colombo, to two and a half years in prison as a conspirator in the cashing of $407,000 in American Express travelers checks stolen at Kennedy Airport.

  Twenty-three men and two women have been indicted, and all but four have pleaded guilty or have been convicted of transporting and passing the travelers, checks, which were stolen on Aug. 30, 1966. In all that time, however, no one has been arrested or indicted for the actual theft.

  United States Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau has called the theft and disposal of the checks here and in Las Vegas, Dallas, Baltimore, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and elsewhere the work of a gang familiar with air cargo handling at the airport.

  The American Express case and the other thefts have raised serious questions about the ability of existing law agencies at the airports and the airlines’ private guards to provide adequate protection of high-value cargo.

  In 90 reported thefts at Kennedy Airport last year, the loot amounted to $2.2-million, two and a half times the 1966 total and nearly 50 times that of five years ago. The Port of New York Authority, which compiled the figures, did not include thefts of items valued at less than $1,000, nor did it include the $2.5-million in non-negotiable securities stolen from Trans World Airlines last Aug. 10.

&n
bsp; Among those sent to prison in the American Express case, besides Colombo’s 34-year-old nephew, Maurice Savino, was Vincent (Jimmy Jones) Potenza, 40, who has been listed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a member of the Mafia ‘family’ headed by Carmine (Mr. Gribs) Tramunti, reputed successor to the late Thomas (Three-Finger Brown) Luchese.

  Potenza and Americo Spagnuolo, who bought the stolen checks at 25 cents on the dollar and sold them for twice that to the passers, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and took maximum prison terms rather than identify the actual thieves.

  One prospective Government witness, John Anthony Panarello, an ex-convict named in the indictment as a co-conspirator but not as a defendant, has been silenced by gangland guns. His body, with two bullets through his head, was found in a roadside ditch in the Catskills as his rented car burned nearby. . .

  An official expression of concern over underworld influence at Kennedy came from S.I.C. Chairman Lane during the questioning of the hearing of Alvin C. Schweizer, regional director of Air Cargo, Inc., a corporation set up jointly by the airlines to hire trucking companies.

  Mr. Schweizer had told of threats of labor troubles allegedly made by Harry Davidoff, an officer of Teamster Local 295, against National Airlines and Northwest Airlines when they were considering changing trucking companies.

  BURGLAR AND EXTORTIONIST

  Referring to Davidoff, a convicted burglar, extortionist and bookmaker, Mr. Lane asked Mr. Schweizer: ‘It seems to me that one man could tie up the whole air freight industry in New York if he has that much control over the union—is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir, very definitely,’ replied the witness. ‘Because the drivers of the catering trucks and refueling trucks and the food processors who come onto the airport with food for the flights are either teamsters or other drivers [who] would respect any informational picket line that Local 295 or any other organization might establish.’

  There was testimony also that a negotiator for the Metropolitan Import Truckmen’s Association had threatened American Airlines with a shutdown of the airport if it hired a ‘non-associated’ trucker. Mr. Lane also charged that racketeers held key positions in both the union and the trade association.

  Among underworld names that came up at the airport hearings were those of convicted labor racketeer John (Johnny Dio) Dioguardi and Antonio (Tony Ducks) Corallo, identified by law enforcement agencies as members of the Tramunti Mafia ‘family’; Anthony DiLorenzo, an ex-convict described by authorities as an associate of the Vito Genovese ‘family,’ and John Massiello, a reputed Genovese Mafioso and convicted smuggler.

  DiLorenzo, a convicted car thief, was on the payroll of the Metropolitan Import Trucking Association for $25,000 a year as a labor consultant. Massiello was also on the same payroll as a labor consultant.

  Joseph Curcio, a convicted labor racketeer and strong-arm ‘enforcer’ who once shared the same cell in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary with Joseph

  M. Valachi, the Mafia member who later testified against the crime organization, was on the payroll of a trucking company as a salesman. The company’s president admitted during the S.I.C. hearings that Curcio had never brought in any business.

  Most of the underworld influence uncovered in the air freight industry has been at the 4,900-acre Kennedy Airport, which is as big as all of Manhattan south of 42nd Street. The airport is crowded with cargo buildings and heaps of unguarded freight are piled even on the aprons of the flying field. More than 40,000 people work on the airport . . .

  FORGED PAPERS USED

  Two men drove a panel truck on Feb. 27 into the cargo area of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, showed forged papers marked with what resembled a United States Customs seal, loaded the $508,000 shipment of the rare metal palladium from the Soviet Union, smiled at a guard, and drove away. The airline was unaware it had been robbed until five hours later when representatives of the real consignee arrived in an armored truck to claim the shipment.

  Port Authority police contend that the robbery might have been prevented if KLM, which had been robbed three times in the last two years, had notified them when the men in the panel truck picked up the metal. Lieut. John Lefsen, in charge of the authority’s cargo squad, said:

  ‘If we’d been called in to guard the loading of the shipment, we’d have known right away there was something wrong. Engelhard [the consignee] always uses an armored truck and this was just an old, battered green truck with floorboards missing.’

  According to authorities, the thieves had known the flight numbers of the precious cargo, which had arrived in two shipments, and the exact number of items in each.”

  © The New York Times

  “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY / To Sylvia, the best mother in the world, from her children Ellen, Peter, Frank, and Amy.”

  (Public Notices and Commercial Notices.)

  May 13, 1968 Monday

  In the morning the park was so stuffed with gray light that the year seemed already to be tapering off into winter.

  A senior member of the Institute of International Politics and Economics in Prague writes in a journal published by Columbia University in New York about the freedom Socialist nations have to make political decisions on the basis of their own needs, too, so why might that not include working together with capitalist nations. But the article was written before the Moscow Conference, and before the Soviet tanks entered Poland.

  In Paris, on the other hand, the workers understand what the students are saying and want to help them oppose the government, by holding a general strike for one day and one night.

  Employee Cresspahl is scheduled to learn something this morning, something from one of de Rosny’s smaller drawers, and she obediently shows up to work in the kind of dress that a distant friend of the family might wear to a funeral. For the others at the meeting, though, it is a happy occasion—an annual stockholders’ meeting of an allied company—and this time she is going to experience it up close, not see it in a movie, or guess how it is from the Financial Times. So that she knows how it’s done. As if she would ever be allowed to take part in one herself someday.

  – I’m only supposed to be managing an account for Prague: she told de Rosny over the phone. He could hear her embarrassment and resistance, but once again the boss was feeling like a benefactor and wanted to give her the gift of this experience. He started small too, you know.

  The stockholders are standing in chummy groups in a windowless corridor on the twenty-eighth floor, chatting away, all in agreement that they’d as it were showed up for a dull gathering and were looking forward not to it but to when it was over. There is one man standing alone, with his back to the wall, wiry, gaze aimed inward as though memorizing something but distracted by keeping an ear out for the starting gun. Like before a gallery opening. It looks more like a class reunion around the CEO, a giant Viking who holds his blocky skull still, slightly tilted to one side, as though he were only listening, thinking about nothing but the boyish hairstyle he is reshaping with one hand, but it’s precisely he who attracts a happy crowd and greetings cried from across the hall that he answers with short, salty teasing. Employee Cresspahl is supposed to get so close to this man that he’ll shake her hand, but she keeps ending up at cold shoulders, blind looks. She retreats into one of the telephone booths furnished in fine wood and dials the numbers that spell NERVOUS on the dial. – The time is ten oh seven: a voice in the telephone says. But Cresspahl’s assignment was to introduce herself here as a representative of the bank. Which isn’t the truth, heavens above—a male executive is delegated to do that. It’s just that she should secretly think: she’s the host here.

  For a company that buys and processes and wraps up and resells information, the meeting room is quite small. They want to make do with five chairs on the platform, only two microphones at the lectern to the left, the committee’s table could hardly take a heavy turnover, and the rest of the room is full of ordinary metal folding chairs, not many. Clearly this is a frugal company. With its docu
ments in hand Mrs. Cresspahl withdraws to a place near the back wall—that gives her the salaried-professional air she was trying to avoid, and a waiter bends down next to her holding a tray of coffee cups. She can hear the CEO talking in the corridor, relaxed, lingering over the secondary stresses of the words: How can you stand it, to have them keep taking blood out of you, they don’t know what they’re doing. (This to an executive who doesn’t conceal his disease, he uses it.) – There is no. Way. I’ll be taking questions: he says, and maybe this is a running joke because the announcement is met with laughter. Then the board enters the room, with the acting president in front, and he really and truly looks at every single person along the wall as if they’d drawn him into the room with their dutifulness. He is about to nod, and again he notices Cresspahl. But this time she can’t escape out into the hall, she’s trapped between the hard-lipped resolute matron and heavy, flower-patterned drapes with net curtains, meant to make you forget the view of the back lots that haven’t yet been cleared.

  On the agenda: Increasing the stock portfolio from three and a half million to five million shares so as to buy new companies. Hiring an accounting firm. Choosing executives for the coming fiscal year. Cresspahl listens hard to the formulaic way of speaking, tries to memorize it, maybe she will, and it’s possible she’ll celebrate the ritual of legalistic repetitions with more delight than the men at the directors’ table, it being her first time. The CEO has now delivered his annual report like a story with more intimate family details than anyone wants to hear, and now he opens the floor to questions. He insists on getting the inquiries he’d said he wouldn’t take, until a man in the bank uniform carries a hand microphone on a long cable over to a questioner. It’s the anxious man from before, who has mentally rehearsed his scene so thoroughly that now he blows it. Stammering, with wide eyes, and then with words tumbling out on top of one another, he starts in on a complaint about the inadequate exploitation of a tax law that he’s discovered and wants to insist on, with a look on his face that is begging for mercy, and the chair of the committee cuts him off, not impatiently, more like someone dismissing a child you can’t be mad at. The questioner is referred to the section of the paragraph he’d just challenged, given the address and phone number for Allen, Burns, Elman & Carpenter, the mike has already been taken away from him. Now the unfortunate man stretches and Cresspahl could tell him that the committee is rewinding the tape with his valuable protest on it and erasing it. Now for the vote.